Vault 48
by Kaibomb
Summary: Dr. Grey of Vault 48 of the Texan Province is met with a serious lack of choice when his crush the Overseer tells him they have to leave the vault, but goes along with her to try and find help the overseer complete her crazy dream of raising New Houston.
1. Chapter 1

Fate is a funny thing.

That was what ran through my mind as I fell, surely to my death. Behind me there were men dressed in scraps of armor, pulling the triggers of shotguns and machine guns and a few handguns. There were at least thirty of them, and when faced with the choice of jumping off a cliff that fell into eternity, or facing them, I jumped.

And so I fell, wind ripping past me, my heart pounding. Why the hell would it be pounding if I had cast myself to this willingly? Jeez, the human body can be a real retard sometimes.

I hit cold tiles. I groaned, a sleepy mumble of thoughts that weren't quite words yet. The smooth checked floor was cold against my face. It was pretty relaxing actually, at least until the pain from the fall slammed into me. I jolted upright, both hands to my throbing head. For a second I was confused by where I had woken up, on the floor of the Cafe on the third level. But then the memories of last night started to come back to me, and I continued to rub my throbing head, now a headache being added to the bruises I was sure would turn up later. I had been waiting for Carmine, and when she didn't show up, I just couldn't bear to leave. Some part of me had wanted to do nothing more than stay there forever, waiting for her, and I had obliged it, and ended up falling asleep.

And look where it had gotten me. A headache, bruises, cold, hungry, and probably late for my morning shifts. Little bitch had probably been fooling around with somebody else last night anyways. This is why I always left notes to self saying not to commit myself too deeply to one way of looking at things, it always ended up with me having a headache. Still, it may have been worth it to get to feel the momentary bliss of having a girl say yes to going out with me. I climbed back up into the soft leather booth chair, and layed my head down on the table. Screw work today. I had enough sick days piled up to take a month off, so heck, maybe I would today. But as if to tell me off right then and there, my pip boy began to ring its annoying bell that woke me up every morning. So I rose, walking back to my room. It took me a good fifteen minutes to get there, so there wouldn't be any time for breakfast, but I decided to take a quick shower, to let the water cool my head.

Water poored down on me, Icy and cold. Fucking vault. There was always something wrong with it, whether it was that the water was broken or the food processor had decided that everything should taste like broccolli for this whole week. I banged my head against the wall of the shower, sighing again. Life sucks. But it was home, and fore some reason I loved it. Then I was out, pulling on my leather jumpsuit and pipboy, having to pull on the glove a few times before the right fingers went thought the right holes. I walked out the door and reported to my post. I knew it was going to be a great day when the first thing a student asked was why another was eating paste. Kids are obvious and plain about what they said.

"'Cause he's stupid, Sarah."

So was I. She seemed satisfied with this awnser and skipped back to her desk in the front row. The lesson began and ended just like any other, starting with history; essentially a list of how and why America was so damned patriotic and would have won the war if China hadn't gotten in a cheap blow. In all truth I would have loved to tell the children the truth, that we were just as bad as the 'Evil' Chinese communists, extorting third world countries to keep our frail 'American Dreams's together. But I didn't. It wasn't part of my job description, and it probably would have just confused the hell out of them. The lesson went on to science, then grammar, then mathmatics. And then it was over, and I was free to wander about the vault untill curfew, which was still five hours away.

Now, I'm not saying that I hate the vault... Oh wait, yeah I am. But in truth I'd begun to love it too. The cold steel walls that kept out the bad things of the waste, the Air conditioning and refreshing units that kept us alive;even though they woke me up every night. Even the children that pestered and annoyed me every day of every week (Excepting sunday), had their own small soft spot in my heart. I had grown used to it all, and all of my hate for these things slowly faded away. But there was something I truely did hate. The Ideals. Vault 48, the vault named after the fifty three states of old; though that was probably coincidence. Everything in the vault was propoganda that they pumped into the peoples systems; Posters hung through out the vault, proclaiming the old worlds values and how they were what we would remain true too, and how great America was.

Unfortunantly, As a teacher, I had clearance to the more... Informative history texts and files. They were much more true than what we taught the children, and spoke with neither hate nor love toward any country. It was through these I had learned the truth of things in the world. Or at least in my little world. A den of patriotic feelings, cultivated by lies that I had been forced to teach. Not even the overseer knew all the truths that I did. Sure she probably knew that America hadn't been all it was cracked up to be, but she wasn't the type of person who sat down with history texts and poured over them like I was. She was strong and couragous, and even though she had inherited her position though birthright, she had earned it too, though careful and rightous use of her powers as Overseer. She was quite a looker too; blond hair that had never been cut, braided around her face, flowing past her shoulders, and a curvatious body that made me nearly start to salivate.

Damn it! Stop getting off track. Stupid brain. Let's just say that her tight leather vault 48 uniform left very, very little to the imagination.

I bet she even knew my name, even though we'd only been introduced once or twice. She'd been in the grade above me, always the shining star of her class, while I'd been... more of a dull mud planet. My only skill lay in retaining history. That's about as far as it goes.

I passed though the grey coridors of shiny gray steel, hands in the pockets of my suit. I hunched over a little, trying to look like as little of a threat as possible. It was a habit I'd developed, since my 6'1" height stuck out a little in a vault where the next tallest was 5' 11", and the next was 5'8". I passed by people I knew, not to say that there were more than a handfull in the vault I didn't. Being a teacher had that effect. You tended to meet a lot of people, whether as students or conserned parents.

"Hey there! , right?" A clear voice rang out. I knew whose voice it was, since it was on the speakers every morning, and she said the pledge with us though a recording every day in the classroom. Her blond hair flipped and curled as she moved. The Overseer. Wait what? I nodded dumbly as she continued talking. "I wanted to see you later. I know you know more about the history of our great country than anyone else, and I want to ask you a few questions."

"Um, okay, I guess? Are you sure, er, aren't there any others more qualified than me?" My voice faltered as it left my throat, and stumbled on the words. Wasn't every day that I got to talk to the Overseer, And suddenly the thoughts from a few minutes ago came back to me. Stupid brain.

"Nope, not in all the vault. I've seen you reading those old texts, even while eating. Everybody says you know everything about history. Stop by my office at 18 hundred hours. See you then." She smiled as she walked off, hips swaying in a way my obnoxious brain couldn't help but point out.

What just happened? My first time talking to a girl that wasn't half my age in practically a month, not including the deli sandwitch girl or over a terminal, and she not only asked me out, but to her room, on an evening when neither of us would have anything the next day, do to my teaching duties and her ability to do whatever the hell she wanted.

I sighed, then continued my walk down the hall, the gray walls started to seem opressive again. Naturally. I bet she really did just want to talk about history. Just wanted to probe my mind to find out the truth of what had happened in some unimportant place hundreds of years ago. Then my smile returned. Actually, that didn't sound half bad. History was one of the few things I enjoyed, and the only thing above that on the list was spending time with a pretty girl, and since I got to do both I got pretty excited. There wasn't a downside to this equation. Either I got to spend a night romantically involved with the most beautiful woman in the vault, or at least in my opinion which was what mattered, or I go to spend it with the most beautiful woman in the vault talking about my favorite subject. Win-Win.

My jaw had practicaly unhinged itself, because of how wide my grin was, by time I got back down to the cafe where I'd spent the night. The memories soured my face for a few moments, but my smile lept right back onto my face as pretty quickly.

"Gonna spend another night here? Maybe I should bring in a matress." A beefy armed, and angry eyed chef wearing a typical chef hat said to me, cleaver in one hand and a slab of meat in the other. Now if I was anybody else in the world, with exception of my dad, I probably would have pissed myself at the sight. Fortunantly for the floor I was me, and I had grown up with the guy.

"Hey Chef. Nice knife." I said nonchalauntly as I took a seat at the bar. Chef grinned at me, eyes seeming to stare right down to my soul.

"Like it? I just had it sharpened. Nice to see that damned over there work for his keep for once.

The Hovering in the corner beeped angrily, speaking in a shrill computerized voice, "Hey! I do plenty around here! When was the last time you saw a radroach? Never, that's right, because I torch 'em before they get within a hundred yards of this place!" He raised his flame tossing appendage to emphsize his point.

Chef just laughed. "Last time I saw one? This morning!" He wagged his knife to point to a box full of dismembered radroach. The unit beeped indignantly, then floated back to his corner and promptly shut off.

My eyebrow rose. "Uh, Chef, not that I'm questioning your cooking or anything, but whats up with the box of radroach meat?"

He put the knife down and pulled a beer from the fridge unit embeded in the wall. "To feed the hounds. They can't tell it from normal meat, and they much prefer it over the stale pellets that the food production units in the underwing puts out." I shrugged. What Chef did with his robotic hounds was his buisness. I'd never really liked the things myself, robotic parts clicking, their brains easily visible, always looking at you like they'd eat you in a moments notice if their HUD read you as a non-friendly. Which they would. I nodded thanks to Chef as he handed me the beer. So what if I was a teacher? Drinking was one of the only releases this vault had, and it was my right as an American to drink!

Geez, look at me. I'm starting to sould like the people from the old holovids. Oh well, I did what I did best;Shrugged and chugged.

"Sorry about last night," I said, almost to myself, "I just didn't want to leave. Some part of me wanted to wait for her."

Chef chuckled, his eyes never changing. They had always been angry looking, as long as I could remember. "No harm done. But you really should start to get home before curfew."

"Yeah, yeah." I mumbled. I took a second look around the cafe. There weren't many people here, just a older man drinking coffee and reading a newspaper and a couple sitting by one of the viewports into the magma lake that sat right next to the vault. I had heard that they found it on accident building this place, then, to lazy to change anything, just kept on building right next to it. Meh, it's probably what I would have done too.

I stayed and chatted with Chef for a while; Him, the unit, and me all laughing to jokes we'd thought up during the day. I'd never met a bot like that in my whole life. He was at least two hundred and twenty years old, and yet all he seemed to use his collected wisdom to do was come up with better jokes than us. And that he did. Before I knew it, it was already 1730, so I scooted off to my room to try to brush the smell of alcohol out of my mouth, and change into some less... worn clothing. People always commented on how my Vault suit looked more like a Utility suit that anything else. I hesitated to tell them that it truely was a utility suit. It was just so comfortable I couldn't stop wearing it.

But, that comfort would have to wait for another day. I stripped off the worn leather and sweaty undershirt, and took a quick shower, more of a hosing down than a real bath, but I didn't have time for it. I'd spent just a bit to long with Chef and the . The cold water washed over me again, but this time, instead of chilling me to the bone, my new mirth kept me warm. I could barely remember the last time I'd been alone with a pretty woman. I got out of the shower and put on the fresh leather outfit I'd layed out, checking the clock on my pip boy as I did so. 1756. Nice. That left me just just enough time to get to her quarters exactly on time. If I ran.

I ran.

I checked my pip boy clock as I got to the steel yellow striped door, small words saying 'OVerseer' just beneath to the overly large bolded forty eight, and it told me that I was just on time. Even so, I decided to wait a few minutes to catch my breath. Didn't want to go in looking like a total idiot. Plus, I'm pretty sure women like guys who are fashionably late. I hoped.

I knocked on the hard steel door, and it rose shockingly fast.

"You're late." I heard, as she grabbed my collar and pulled me into her room. So much for fashionably late. She looked terrible.

Well, not terrible. That was probably impossible. But compared to when she requested me just a few hours ago, she had gone to hell. Her hair was fussed up, and her eyes were red. Had she been crying? What the hell? Her vault suit that was normally all perfectly giglined and orderly was wrinkly and off balance. She walked to a felt couch in the middle of her quarters, next to a large coffee table and more than a couple of book cases. There was clutter everywhere. Hadn't her mom taught her too pick up? Shit. Her mom and dad were dead. Right. Not going to bring that one up. As she walked pulling me behind her, she began to explain why she had requested my presence.

"You see, I was trying to sleep yesterday, but I couldn't. I practically never can now days. I generally get away with sleeping in my office when I nod off, but I wanted to get some rest anyways. But when I decided it was hopless, I walked over to my terminal, trying to see if any issues had come up that I could ponder over, or any work to do, but I'd already done all of that the night before. So I, being bored, began to dig though some of the old history holovids, and texts."

Shit. Please tell me this is heading somewhere else than I think it is.

"And I found something I really didn't... like."

Fuck.

"You know more about history than anybody in the vault, right?" She turned to me, and gestured towards the couch as she took a seat herself.

"Well, I guess." I shrugged. I was trying to act non-chalant, but my brain was burning. I knew where this was going. I wanted to run out of that room, tell her that what she had found was wrong. But for some reason, I just couldn't; something about her just made me want to tell her the truth, and hope she could accept it.

"Good. So tell me, why did America support the panamanian revolution? Even when they knew that hundreds would die in the finging?" Her crystal blue eyes stared at me. In any other situation I would have told her how beautiful they were, but unfortunantly for me, I'm me, and like hell would I ever get into the circumstances where that would be acceptable. Damn it.

"They knew it would be the most beneficial thing. They knew that with that, they would be able to easily move their navy from one side of the world than the other." I shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She frowned and looked down. Then she searched over the coffee table with her eyes, and snatched up a magazine. She flipped through a page and pointed to a small picture in the corner.

"So why did they try to keep cuba under military rule? According to this article the Cubans hated America, even though it became the 53rd state later." She got closer to me, I could feel her warmth even though her leather suit and mine. Damn it brain, stop that shit; she's obviously going though a hard time, learning that America isn't all it was made out to be. But she was so soft...

"Uh, well, they really wanted it as a buffer from the east, at least that's their main excuse. Other than that it was a wealth of sugar and cheap labor, with beautiful land that the government would have made millions selling." I said pretty cofidently. I might not know how to comfort a woman going through a breakdown, but I knew my history. I think I'd rather have the other one right now though. Sigh.

"Huh. So they just wanted it because they would benefit them. Not because the spanish were oppressing them?" Her eye's seemed to sparkle with hope. Fuck. I was getting tired of shutting down her dreams.

"Well, I'm not saying that that didn't play a role in it, but from what I've read, the only real reason that that was ever brought up was to turn the citizens into bloodthirsty warmongers, who would excuse anything the government did as long as they thought that they would come out looking like heroes."

"Oh." She sighed too. "So what was it when we invaded Japan?"

"We wanted a station in Asia to run it from."

"And with Thailand?"

"Same thing. We wanted more control. Once we had a taste of ImpeCarminelism, we just couldn't stop."

"What about with Brazil? The people where truely suffering there!"

"Yeah, but what wasn't suffering was us when we got control over all of the uranium deposits underneath their rainforests."

"What about Greenland?"

"We benefited."

"Puerto Rico?"

"ImpeCarminelism."

"North Australia?"

"Now that, was a lot of gold."

She crumpled. Everything she had ever known was just torn from underneath her. Her America, the patriotic feelings that this vault was built on, suddenly died in her. She sobbed. She just sat there on the couch for hours, her face in her hands, just crying. It was probably much worse for her than it had been for me. I'd never really cared about America, plus I'd always assumed that it had darker motives. There were to many gaps in our textbooks for America's economy to make any sense otherwise. But her... She'd been raised on this. Her mother, her mother's mother, they'd all been raised on the knowlage that America was the greatest country in the world, that it was brave, and couragious, and strong; and they had modeled themselves after it. She probably had had it so branded into herself that America was perfect that learning all of this was like chopping off a arm. She could live, but she'd never be the same. Damn it brain. I knew she might not be the same, but I could hope. I didn't try to comfort her with false words, or even softer truths. I just held her shoulders, and let her cry herself to sleep.

I lowered her down on to the couch softly, trying not to wake her. I tried not to think about what she might think now, or how she might change. Instead, I went to her bedroom, and pulled a blanket out from inside the chest that held the bed mateCarminels. I set it over her shoulders softly, tucking in as best I could without making any noise. I shut the lights of then I made my way out through the pitch black of the room. I walked to the large metal door, which made far more noise openning than I'd have liked, and began to step out, when I heard a voice in the darkness.

"I'm sorry." Her voice echoed thoughout the room. It wasn't loud, or said with much force, but it was the only sound in the air. Heck, maybe she had said it in her sleep.

"Don't worry about it. I'll always be here when you need me." I whispered back. The vault brand automatic door came down with a clang.

I walked through a cold, pitch black hall. I could hear the sounds of steel doors opening and closing all around me, but I could see nothing, and all I could feel was the cold air around me. Then there was a light off in the distance, faded, not bright enough to illuminate more than a few feet around it, and it glowed the yellow of vault emergency lighting. Where the light hit, I could see a small child, holding a skull. Then as I watched, he smiled, and his smile grew and grew until his face ripped, his smile continuing to grow, then there were mouthes on the walls. Bright gnashing teeth filled the darkness, there were hundreds, thousands, and all of them were comming for me. There was no one to save me. I was all alone, and I screamed as the gaping jaws ripped me to shreds.

My heart beat furiously in my chest as I all but sprang from my bed. I had to escape, the teeth, they were... not there. Just a dream. Again. I covered my face with my hands and sighed. There was nothing here. No monster in the darkness waiting to snatch me up. Sometimes I wished there was though. I checked my pip boy, looking at the chronometer. 0336. I'd only been sleeping for a couple of hours. Another sigh slipped from my lips. I hoped that I hadn't screamed during the dream. I did that sometimes. It was one of the numerous reasons I was glad to have separate quarters from my parents. I guess that was a good thing about having a vault that was a few hundred under it's maximum capacity.

Vault 48 had been designed to hold an amazing two thousand people. Not that that would have really helped all of the people who weren't able to get to the vaults in time, or the over 331 million people who wouldn't have been able to fit into them. I'd done the math, and that was assuming that each vault had the capacity to hold a thousand people, and that they'd finnished building all 150 vaults. Another thing that I knew that others in the vault remained to be blissfully ignorant of.

Oh god. It all came back to me, the memories of the night before. I'd told the Overseer what was really happening, and she'd seemed pretty messed up about it. Shit.

Double oh god. What I'd said... so lame. There I was with an oppertunity to say any number of heroic and majestic things, things that might have made her see me in a different light all together, and I'm pretty sure I just friend-zoned myself. "Why in the hell am I so lame..." I muttered in the darkness, before rolling into a comfortable position and falling back to the wonderful oblivion of sleep in my warm, comfortable bed.

Waking up again was not nearly as pleasant. The bed was warmer, I was comfortable, and everything was peaceful. Except for my Pipboy screeching at me. I slammed my fist down on my Pipboy bearing wrist, but immediatly regretted it. Jesus, what did they make these things out of? With my right hand throbing from the impact, I rolled off my bed and stood up in one swift and effecient manner I'd perfected over the years. Sure I wasn't smart, but at least I could get out of my bed effeciently. The vents put on quite a show of making as much noise as they could, and shaking violently to pump out air before going still. Seemed like every piece of machinery in here was going to break. I glared at my Pipboy to try to find out what had woken me up, after all, it was a sunday, and was suprised to find a message from the Overseer.

Meet me in the library. ASAP.

Wow, Nice detail. I just hoped she wouldn't try to go through the extensive histories in the library just to dig up even more of America's dark secerets. My hopes were made to be dashed anyways, so why not. The time read 1130, which I decided was enough sleep for one day. So, I picked my Utility suit up off the floor, and pulled it on. I would be damned if I was going to end up smashing the rest of what little pride she had left in our vault and America, but I'd be double damned if I did it wearing something uncomfortable.

And so once again I set out thought the dark and cold steel halls of my vault, not knowing that it would be my last, for a long, long time. I passed by the reactors and brightly lighten signes that spoke of where to go. What idiot would ever need them though, having grown up her already? But the halls and the lights and sounds of grumbling air proccessors calmed me down. It was peaceful. Roughly. I sighed as I came to the doors of the library. I had no real reason to obey the Overseer, since every real decision she made had to be put through the citizens before it was enforced at all, and I somehow doubt that she'd have put a request like this through, and doubted even more that anybody would have given it more than a passing glance before they denied it, petty as it was. But I still pressed the large button that opened the door and stepped through.

She was looking a lot better than she had the night before; she'd cleaned up her hair and put on a cleaner and unwrinkled suit. She sat at a hard metal table surrounded by books, trying to read more than one at once, it seemed. Her eye's followed me with a unsettling furiocity as I entered the library, and took a seat across from her, plopping myself down in the rough and hard metal chair. I immediatly found myself regretting leaving the comfort of my bed.

"You're late, again." She said, her eyes never leaving mine. I shrugged.

"I only woke up about ten minutes ago." I said, putting my hands behind my head and leaning back in the chair, the front legs quivering ever so much off the ground. She scowled at me again. Why the hell did she look so angry?

"I guess that makes me feel a little better about what I've done." She sighed and then rubbed her temples. What had she done? I was opening my mouth to say something when she elaborated. "I deleted all questionable files from the vault database." I gaped, front legs of my chair slammed down to the ground.

"YOU WHAT?" I shouted, drawing the attention of the libraCarminen, who gave me a dissaproving look as she put her index finger to her lips. God damn it. I started again in a hushed voice. "You did what?"

"I deleted all of the files that made America look like the bad guy, that way the next Overseer and teacher won't be able to see them and they won't ever question america in any way." She explained calmly, fire still burning in her eyes.

"Wait, wait wait," I said, now I was really confused. Sometimes, I wished I was smarter. Okay, a lot of times. "What do you mean, 'Next Overseer and techer'?"

Her furious glare turned to one of slight dissapointment, like a father after his son fails to hit a home run in the final inning. She said to me simply, "We're leaving the Vault."

Just like that. Like it was the simplist thing in the world. Even though for all our lives, we'd been taught that the radiation of the waste would kill us all if we let it. Even though we'd been told that the radiation had mutated the once glorious people and animals of our great country into blood thirsty monsters that would destroy everything we stood for without a seconds hesitation or notice. "WHAT!" I shouted again, only to earn another annoyed look from the libraCarminen, who promptly turned her nose at me and walked away. I guess that was a perk from being with the Overseer, nobody wanted to mess with you.

"It's for the best. Without us, all of these seditious thoughts will be brought down, and our vault will go back to normal. Happy, and blissfully ignorant of America's faults." She said matter of factly. Her self confidence was starting to piss me off.

"Yeah, I can understand that, but why you? You could just forget this ever happened and live your life in ignorance yourself? And I sure as hell could! I've already been doing it for three years!" I was just a step away from slamming my fist down on the table. LibraCarminen's scorn be damned!

"First, no, I can't. I'll never be the same. Second, have you looked at your progress and personality testings for the last three years? Every score of yours has been dropping. The charts say you'll probably be unstable by the end of the year. And all of this started when you gained access to the information that... Doesn't matter any more. So, we're leaving now. You have three hours. Meet me at the door on the ground level. Don't talk to anyone, I'll take care of the excuses as to why were gone." She rose from the chair and took her stack of books with her. Now I could understand what she'd been doing. She'd been finding all of the books with informaqtion that could have been considered seditious. Fuck. FUCK FUCK FUCK. She meant it. If I didn't leave who knew what she'd do.

Meh, a voice in my head said, not like we ever really liked it here. Maybe it was right. Wait, hell no it wasn't! I'd just started to like it here! What about Chef, and Mr. Handy? What about Mom and Dad! Hell, I'd even miss Carmine! Even DeGrasse, the school bully who'd thrown me down a flight of stairs! This was my home! And, and... it sucked. I stopped fighting. I layed my head down on the table for a few minutes. What the hell was going on...? Then I rose from the table, accidentally knocking a book onto the floor. It was a manual on survival in predicted wastland conditions. I took it, then walked out of the library. Three hours wasn't a lot of time to get my stuff together.

Nothing like leaving everything you know and love behind to make you realize how little you knew and loved. I mean, I'd really didn't want to leave my dad, or my mom, or Chef, but that was about it on a list of people who I thought would even notice I'd be gone. Oh well. I packed my meager belongings in a small rucksack. A couple BB pellets, about thirty stimpacks (I'd always cleared out the ones in the First Aid boxes. They'd be replaced by the seemingly endless supply from the Infirmary anyways, and I let the blame fall on jerks who deserved it.), a few shots of Med-X, a couple of bobbypins, a 'Vigilante' Comic book, and a picture of my mom and me as a baby. That was all I had. Next to that lay a baseball bat, which I planned on taking. I mean, who knew what we'd find out there?

I found a bottle of Wonderglue, and two rolls of Ducttape, and added them to my bag. The I thought about it for a second, and pulled out the wonderglue and one of the rolls of Duct tape and pulled off my Utility suit. I grabbed a bunch of metal scrap that was lying around and got to work aggumenting my suit. When I was done, I looked at it and grinned proudly. I wasn't sure how well it'd block bullets, but it definantly looked a good deal more badass. I donned my newly awesome armor and slung my pack over one shoulder, grabbed my bat from where it lay, and started up to ground floor.

I've told you before that Vault 48 was big, but I was just beginning to truely appreciate just how big. And by appreciate I mean start sweating because of it as I ran to catch my appointment with the Overseer. Or not Overseer. What the hell was I supposed to call her now? Overseers didn't retire, they normally just died. Meh, I'd ask later. I arrived at the massive steel gear door about three minutes before three hours was up, and still was met with a familiar greeting. I ignored it only because of how huge that gear was. I mean, holy shit, did they want to block a nuclear missile directly? Oh, right. They did.

"You're late." She said, tossing me a pistol, looking more tough than I would have ever imagined in her fully decked out pre war security armor. Way to make me feel insecure about my armor. The pistol landing in my arms was rather supprising, and I just stood and stared at her for a few seconds.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked, flipping the pistol around in my hands, looking over its worn metal and grip.

She rolled her eyes. "You know, point and shoot? It's really not hard." She mimed out the actions of aiming and pulling the trigger for me.

"Yeah, I caught that, but why the hell are you giving it to me? I've never really used one before." I explained, still examining the pistol. Seemed like a 9mm. Judging by the size of the hole. Okay, I have no idea what type of gun I was holding.

This seemed to catch her by suprise. "Really? I thought parents all taught their kids?"

"Not mine. They were more pasifists. Peaceful protest and all." I said, putting the pistol into my bag.

"Hippies..." She murmered under her breath. "Okay, let's get rolling!" She said excitedly as she started working at the consoles that controlled that massive gear. Holy sit. I still couldn't get over just how massive it was.

"Wait, so what did you tell everybody? About us leaving?" I questioned. This I at least wanted to hear, I couldn't imagine anything that would explain both of us dissapearing so suddenly.

"Thats obvious. I just hacked into the reactor subframe and manipulated the cameras to show us meeting down there to have some... adult fun... then slipping and falling into the magma lake." She blushed as she said adult fun. Cute. Wait what?

"You did what?" I shouted again. "You made it seem like we were, um... well..." I stopped talking. Actually that seemed like a pretty awesome note to leave on. Leaving my family and friends thinking that I was fucking the most powerful woman in the vault. Not to mention making everyone else jelous.

As I muttered to myself she finished up with the controls and pulled a lever, and the gear started to pull back, then was rolled aside by the most powerful hydrolic machinery I'd ever seen. Once again, Holy shit. "Ok, I've rigged up the sensors so that as long as the door isn't opened for more than ten minutes, it won't register it as ever being oppened. Are you ready?" She asked, as she put a pistol into a holster on her side, then shouldered a rifle.

"Meh. I guess." I said, as I walked out into that cold, damp, rock cavern, where fifty feet away there was a broken and battered wooden door with light streaming through it. I stepped out of the Vault, not knowing what lay ahead, not knowing where we were going, or even really why. My last thoughts as we both put our hands on that wooden door handle, even as the gigantic gear pulled into place behind us, was:

'I need to be more assertive,' 


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing I noticed was how brilliantly bright it was outside the cold damp recesses of the vault, how the light played on my skin and enveloped me in warmth. The second thing I noticed was how the brilliant light had blinded me. The Overseer, or um... retired Overseer, seemed to be suffering the same thing. No matter how many guns she was packing, or how thick her armor was, she hadn't donned her helmet, and was thusly blinded by the light of the sun.

Wait a second. What was her name? Did I just really escape from my home that I loved with someone whose name I couldn't even recall? All my life, from classes to job, we'd always just called her 'the Overseer's Daughter' or later 'the Overseer', but that was it. I don't think anybody ever even tried to get aquainted with her. Huh.

When my vision cleared I looked around, and my jaw dropped. I'd seen pictures, but what I saw of the Outside was more astonishing than I ever could have imagined. I bet a lot of vault dwellers say that when they get topside. I shook my head and went for a second look. It stretched in all directions for as far as I could see, with he exception of behind us, because I couldn't see over the hill our vault was built into. I bet it went forever in that direction too. The best thing was looking up. For a second I thought that I would drift off, into that beautiful blue sky, dotted by grey and white clouds. There were no ceilings, no walls, no boundaries. I felt free for the first time in my life. While I'd found comfort in the familiar walls that kept me safe in the vault, it couldn't compare to what I felt now. This feeling of awe, and wonder at how infinite the world seemed. There were mountains to the far west, buildings rose on the southern horizon, in the east I could already see a river and a few small structures near it. A smile graced my face, simply arising without my summons, showing just how happy I was to see this world. This wonderful world where anything could happen, where there were no limits. I turned to the former Overseer to see that she wasn't as in awe as I had been.

No, she was quite busy actually. Throwing up. I felt bad for the dried out and near dead looking bush she'd picked as a target. She was on her hands and knees as she gave our new world another liter of liquid. I don't think it appreciated it.

"The sky..." She moaned, as she rose from her position on the ground, "Oh god... It's so... Big..." She trailed off as she tried not too look up. I guess I was going to have to find someone else to share the wonders of this new wide world with. She wiped her mouth with the back of a gloved fist.

"You okay?" I asked as I patted her on the back. She shoved my hand off.

"Yeah. Just some... um... reverse vertigo? I don't know what to call it." She said as her gaze began to rise upwards again. When her head got to about 45 degrees she snapped it back down and clenched her eyes shut. "Yes... Definantly reverse vertigo."

I patter her back again as I laughed. We were outside in a world of oppertunity and danger, with radiation and who knows what around every corner, and she was afraid of the most beautiful thing here. Figures. "So, where do you think we should head now that were out?" I said, sitting down on a rock next to the wooden door.

That got her attention. "Oh, right!" She pulled a map out of her own vault 48 backpack. The shiny plastic made me feel a little selfconcious about my own leather and nylon rucksack. "Okay, so this map says that we're right about... here!" She pointed to a small dot on the map marked with a huge vault tec vault emblem she must have drawn herself. "So we should go to... to... Here!" she pointed at a small dot on the map labled, New Houston.

"And which direction is that?" I asked. I looked at the map without really paying attention. Maps weren't my strongpoint.

"Um... it looks like its to the east. I heard that New Houstons defences were really strong! Maybe the bombs didn't even hit there!" There was a strange look in her eyes. A sort of sparkle. And the way she spoke... she seemed, happy. Weird. My thoughts were interrupted by a synchronized beep on my Pipboy as well as hers. We shared a confused glance, then both looked down at our Pip boys. Looking at the screen, I saw that it had bounced to, 'World Map' mode, and I saw two square location markers, one a little gear marked 'Vault 48' and another square, this one with a dash through it, that was marked 'New, New Houston'. Wait what? Had it picked this up from the conversation we'd just had? And why was it called 'New, New Houston'?

"Umm, did your Map just get a new Icon?" I asked her as she stood silently at the screen. She shook herself out of her shocked silence and nodded. "Huh. Well, I guess these things are a little more advanced than I'd given it credit for. I guess it'll be pretty useful out here in the Wasteland." At the word 'Wasteland' both Pipboys beeped again. I checked the screen, and sure enough, it had done something weird again. A new note had been added to my Misc. Section.

Loading Pipboy 3000 Cowpoke Waster...Complete  
>Initiating Compass...Complete<br>Initiating HostileDefMod-E.F.S...Complete  
>Initiating Weapon Synchronization...Complete<br>Initiating V.A.T.S System Loader...Complete  
>Voice Recognized: Default Set...Complete<br>Beginning Cowpoke Waster Introduction...Start

These words ran across the screen as I scrolled though, and as I reached the bottom, a new note added itself. I activated it, and was supprised when a womans Electronicly gargled voice started to play from my speakers.

"Howdy! This is your Pipboy speaking! Now, you might be supprised as to why I'm talking, so I'll tell you! This Pip boy has been programmed with the COWPOKE WASTER Package from vault tec itself! That means I'll be able to help you on your journey through the wasteland, by telling you things such as how thirsty you are and how long you can go without eating, too the effects you are suffering because of extra radiation or sleep deprivation! Isn't that neat! Now, as some of you might know, the wasteland isn't a good place! Probably! So, To help you out, this Pipboy has also been equipped with a HOSTILEDEFMOD-E.F.S.. This nifty piece of tech can tell you what's friendly and what's not in the wasteland, so remember 'Green, keep it clean; Red it's dead!'. This Pipboy has also been equipped with V.A.T.S., that's a system that will help you speed up your reflexes and get your attacks where they need to go! Now get out there and giddyup cowboy!"

The tape ended. What? "Uh... are you still there?" I said into my Pipboy as the former Overseer was tapping on hers, skipping over the voice telling her about all the new features. She looked like she had some idea as to what all of this was.

"Yes." A robotic Voice rang out of my Pipboy. It didn't seem to be the woman from earlier, instead it sounded like a robot. Kind of like the that worked in the Cafe.

"Um... It's kind of freaking me out to talk to you... uh, what are you?" I said softly into the Pipboy.

"Acknowlaged. Verbal Functions Disabling." She said, then there was a beep, and I looked at my pip boy screen. There were her words, typed out on the screen instead of being spoken. It wan't what I'd meant, but heck, it was easier this way anyways.

I am a Pipboy 3000 Cowpoke Edition. I was developed for distribution to several Vault Tec vaults in the Texas and Oklahoma Provinces.

"Uh... Ok..." This was weird. If my Pipboy could talk, why hadn't it done so before? Why did nobody tell me about this? Oh well. Another mystery. "So... What's this Vats thing?" I said, voice wavering but gaining strength. The former Overseer sat on a rock near me tapping madly at her Pipboy.

V.A.T.S., Quite simply, is a program to help you shoot people or creatures that might be hostile in the Wasteland. It's full name is the Vault Automated Targeting System. To activate it, simply concentrate on a target and think about the word V.A.T.S. and I will bring it up for you

Wow. So not only could my pip boy talk now, but it also could read my mind. I was glancing around for things to target, when I found myself looking at a small compass. Inside of my eyes. I jumped to my feet, startled only to find that the compass followed my eyes, seeming to be locked within them. There was a green tab mark where the... damn it, I really need to get her name... former Overseer sat. I guess that was the HOSTILEDEFMOD-E.F.S.. Bleah. So weird. I decided to try V.A.T. on the former Overseer, and it brought up lots of statistics, like how likely I was to hit, and how much damage the hit would do, all within the confines of my eyes! Geez, this was going to be take a bit of getting used to.

I stared at her for a while from the confines of V.A.T.S., taking in the whole of her beauty again. Untill I noticed her start to blink. And then continue to do so for the next two minutes. I quickly broke out of V.A.T.S. and stared down at my Pipboy in amazement. Now, I'd known that this thing had some pretty amazing effects, like how it had always know just what was in my pockets or bags and where, and how it always knew my orientation, without help from a orbiting satalite, but slowing down time? Talking to me? Those weren't standards, at least not while we were in the vault. I looked back up to the former Overseer.

"Hey, does your Pipboy have V.A.T.S.?" I asked. She glanced me, then back to her Pipboy, then nodded. "Go ahead and try it out. Not the shooting part, but just activate it." She gave me a weird look, but then quickly went back to her Pipboy and did what I could only guess was looking at the controls for it.

She stared at me for about three seconds, staying stock still, then suddenly a burst of emotion ripped across her face. She was smiling so hard MY jaws started to hurt.

"That's amazing!" She gasped, trying to spend equal time looking to her Pipboy in admiration and back to me. "When do you think they put this in? Why didn't they have it in the vault?" I could only shrug. I really had no Idea. Which is weird. I'm no Pipboy technition or anything, but I'd had more than my share of experiences watching broken ones get fixed, since my Dad was one, and in all the lectures and speeches he'd given about the ingenuity and greatness of the humble Pipboy, He'd never mentioned this, not even once.

It was right about then a scream echoed out across the wasteland. It was horrible, a scream one could only issue if you knew that you wouldn't ever be able to again. The scream of a person who knew they were burnt, crispy, wasteland toast. I gave a quick glance to the Overseer (This is starting to drive me crazy, just what was her name? I must have heard it at least once!), who nodded as she slung her pack over her shoulder and brought her rifle to firing position, and began to run towards the sound of the scream. I snatched up my bat from where I'd left it and bolted after her.

We dashed towards an abandoned farmhouse, and as we turned a corner around the barn, we saw what had issued forth the scream. Splayed out against the barn there was a woman, or I should say most of a woman, as most of her head and upper torso was busy redecorating the side of the barn. Just adjacent to her was a man nearly my height, covered in makeshift armor from head to toe, all made from kitchen utinsils, and with a crown to match. What?

"ALL HAIL THE SPOON KING!" He shouted as he spun his worn and broken shotgun to bear on us. His fingers clicked down on the trigger and the gun exploded, ripping the Spoon king's fingers and thumb from his arm. He looked down to his hand with a puzzled expression on his face, then started smiling and laughing as he tore a spoon from his garmets and rushed towards us. Not a good sign.

"ALL HAIL THE SPOON KING!" He echoed himself as the former Overseer began to raise her rifle to head level, setting up a shot. She was fast. I was faster. In the blink of an eye I was rushing towards the Spoon king as he ran toward us, knocking his... weapon... from his grip, then bringing the butt of my bat down on his crazy head. There was a sickening crack as I did so, but it didn't compare to the thud that his head made as I caved it in with the bat. Crazy ass Spoon King.

I panted as I stood there, end of the bat still laying amidst his gray matter, clutching the handle harder than I ever had before. I took a few seconds to calm myself then turned around, whipping the bat up so that it was braced against my shoulder, then putting on a grin so that I'd look cool. Unfortunantly cool didn't really matter to the former Overseer, who was for the second time in half an hour, spilling her guts out on an innocent bush. I walked towards her, and put a hand on her shoulder. This time she didn't brush it off. After a few good minutes, she rose and put her hand over my own.

"Sorry about that." She said softly. "I thought I'd like shooting, but... maybe I was a little overconfident in my ability to handle... gore. That was NOT how the radroach I shot went down." I laughed. So naturally, not only was she afraid of the sky, but she was a trigger happy hemophobe. I patted her on the back once more then turned my attention back to the two dead we had on our hands. Upon closer inspection, the woman who lay against the barn's clothing looked suspiciously like the Spoon king's.

Don't forget to loot the bodies. My Pipboy displayed. Now THAT, was creepy. Probably right though. I started to go through their pockets and bags. On the Spoon king I found roughly what I'd expected, a shit ton of spoons, along with a couple of extra shells for his now destroyed shotgun. His queen however, had much better loot. She had ten more shotgun shells (of a different variety of her king's.), a old military knife, a gold necklace, a holotape, and a small submachine gun with over twenty rounds to match! I handed the submachine gun over to the former Overseer, and- Screw this, I'm finding out her name.

"Hey, what's your name?" She looked at me like I was an idiot. Not that I really wasn't nor did I not deserve the look for forgetting her name. Then she sighed and said, "Amber. Amber Goldenrod."

Huh. Well, that's nice to know. "Nice to meet you Amber." I extended my hand, which she took and shook with all of the grace of a politician. Which she was, to be fair. That didn't stop her from looking at her palms in utter horror as she realized that I'd been sticking my hands through the Spoon King's pockets. I just kept laughing.

"And what's your name?" She said in return, as she wiped her hand off on her security combat armor. That I hadn't expected. Didn't she know my name? No, I guess she'd only known my last, which was to be expected. My name got mentioned often enough as parents complained about my teaching techniques.

"I'm Silver. Silver Slate Gray." She smiled at me, I smiled back. Weird. I finnaly felt comfortable around a girl, and it was only after I'd turned someone's head into jelly and pickpocketed his girlfriends corpse. Speaking of which, I looked at the holotape in my hand, then pressed play.

-Hello- Her voice was uneven and full of obvious fear. - I doubt anybody will ever listen to this, but if they do, I want you to know what happened to me. Last week I was set upon by raiders, who, well... raped me. A lot.- I could hear her shudder through the tape. - Anyways, a man by the name of the Spoon king came along and saved me, pasting all the raiders. Or at least that's what I'd thought. Oh, here he comes- The tape cut off. I turned to say something to Amber, but then it started up again. -Ok, part two, so he saved me and all, but he's a total wackjob. I think he's only letting me live as long as he think's I'm his spoon queen. I shudder to think what would happen if he found out otherwise. He's been shooting up with ungodly amouts of Med-X. I'm scared.-

-It's been two days since that first recording, and he's gone to hell. He just keeps doing more and more Med-X, but so long he still hasn't crashed, so how am I supposed to get away?-

-Four days since that last recording. I'm done with this. I'm gonna make a run for it this afternoon, as he's shooting himself up. I think that if this dose doesn't kill him nothing will, so it's now or never. This is Demi Lovegood, signing off. Goodbye world. Or not.-

The recording finnaly cut off. Looks like we'd found her just as she'd tried to make her escape, but failed. If only we'd come sooner. Damn it. DAMN IT. I slammed my fist against the barn. I hadn't felt any pity just a second ago, but now I was on the edge of tears. What the hell kind of a monster would do this to a woman? I sighed. I guess the type of monster that this wasteland specialized in. I looked back to Amber, who was just staring off into the distance, lost in thought. A bit of color had faded from her face. I decided to check inside the barn. It was even more rewarding than their pockets had been. I found a shotgun that matched the shells I'd found in Demi's pockets. I guess she took it so that he couldn't use it against her. Didn't do her much good. I found at least twenty empty containers of Med-X, but only two that actually had any left. Looking around the barn, I spotted a glint of metal from under a pile of rotting hay. As I moved the hay aside, I realized that it was a safe built into the floor. Since none of the two had had they key, I guessed that this wasn't either of theirs. Heck, it could have been there since before the war. I dug out a lockpick from one of my utility uniforms countless pockets, and got to work. It took me the better part of a half hour, but was plenty rewarding. I found several rounds of pistol ammunition, and a whopping fifty shells for the shotgun I'd recently aquired. Aside from that, there were a few stacks of bills, which I took, and a book on heavy weapons, which I also took. Never knew when I'd have to understand ordinance heavier than I was, right?

I walked outside to find Amber sitting up against the barn, facing away from our friend the corpse and her captor.

"What did you find?" She asked, voice struggling to ignore or forget what she'd just heard. The wasteland really was getting to her. And me. Mostly her though. I hoped.

"Well, I found a kickass shotgun, some kickass bullets, and a book on kickass weapons." I tossed the half empty clip of pistol ammuntion at her. "I'm going to try to find out how to use this shotgun." I grinned at her, but she shrugged away, looking at the ground between her feet. If spoon royalty didn't kill us, I wasn't sure she'd last much longer anyways. I could only hope. I raised the shotgun up and looked down the sights at another helpless bush. I pulled the trigger, then looked down in confusion as nothing happened. I heard a laugh from off to my side.

"You really never were taught how to shoot, were you?" She rose off the ground and started towards me, leaving her gear where she'd sat.

"Nope. The only thing I've ever shot was an electic nail gun. Kind of. Okay, I'd only been pulling the trigger while someone else aimed it, but same concept, right?" More laughter. Wow, way to make a guy feel self confident.

"No, There's a little more too it to pulling the trigger." She got to me and lifted the shotgun from my hands and started explaining the weapon and how it worked. She explained about the saftey (A feature I was a bit suprised to find on a murder machine), how to hold it, not to hold it anywere fragile bones because it would break them like a hammer, and etcetera. She really got into it, losing herself in the joy of handling and explaining a firearm. I guess I'd found a way to keep her from losing her mind to the wasteland: Get more guns. From the fact that even a guy like the Spoon king had gotten his hands on more than one, I was pretty sure it couldn't be too hard. When she finished explaining, I was feeling pretty confident that I could hit anything with this baby. I swung the shotgun up to my shoulder, bracing it and myself, then flicked off the saftey and looked down the barrel from a few inches away. Amber had informed me that if the gun had actually fired when I had been holding it before, I probably would have lost the eye. The I fired, twice in rapid succession, muzzle flashing, and gunshot booming over the valley we were in. Lowering the shotgun to inspect my target, I was more than a little dissapointed to find that all of my shots had missed by a wider margin than I'd ever be willing to bet my life on, so I handed it back to Amber, who was laughing so hard I think she might have been crying a bit. I couldn't stop my face to turning a bit red with anger.

"Ready to go? Again?" I said to her as she wiped a small tear from her eye. She smiled at me and nodded an afirmitive. I motioned to her to wait a second and walked over to where Demi lay in deaths embrace and crossed her arms over her chest and pulled a blanket I'd found in the barn over her. It was a small comfort, and not nearly what she deserved, but it made me feel a bit better about what we'd just been through. And so we both picked up our gear and started off towards New New Houston.

"You see, Houston was a old city that had been around since... probably 1890s," Amber explained," But during the war with brazil, it took a incindiary missile to the heart. The people had evacuated in time, but they hadn't been able to stop the missile from destroying the city itself. So the people of Houston took it upon themselves to build a greater city, one that would dwarf the old, and signal a form of futility for our enemies, that no matter how we were crushed, we would come back stronger. Better. I'd heard the city itself was one of the most advanced of it's time, but that was before the bombs fell. It was pretty big, so I'm sure it was hit."

"Well, I knew that. I am a history teacher, remember?" I said to her, turning back to look at her as we walked along a lonly road in the middle of a grassy plain. We'd followed the valley we had been in and just kept going until we'd wound up on this road that our compasses informed us was going straight to our destination.

She blushed a little, probably having forgotten in her excitement about the city. "Yes, Of course I know that!" She regained her dignified tone. "But here's what I'd be willing to bet you didn't know. Nobody did. With the exception of the Overseers of the Texas area. The entire city of New Houston was built to be able to GO UNDERGROUND!" I spun to look at her, my eyes widening. "That's right, the entire city! Well, the big buildings at least. Under any case or circumstance where the city was in jeopardy, the buildings were to go underground and not come back up until the danger subsided." Her face darkened a bit, looking down at the ground and biting her lip. "The flaw to such a system was that when the bombs hit, there was enough radiation for it to perceived as a continued threat. Sure, they'd built tunnels to help evacuate the citizens in case they became trapped by radiation, but there was a massive flaw in the plan. The tunnels were collapsed by the bomb. So the radiation sealed the city, and the bomb damned the citizens."

I whistled. That was an impressive feat. Stinks to know it had been undone by such a stupid flaw though. Still, who knows what could still be there, untouched by the wastes after all this time? It was a fantasy worth daydreaming about, that's for sure. "So is that why we're going there? To find this underground city?"

"Yes. More or less." She tilted an eyebrow, trying to think about how to word her plans. "I'm not sure if we really would be able to get in, or raise the city, but if we can it'll truly be amazing, that's for sure. Otherwise we can just keep traveling the wastes. Speaking of which, this hasn't been much of a wasteland so far. Grass as far as the eye can see." She said as she surveyed the surrounding grassland.

"Yeah. I guess a hundred and nintey years is enough for plants to start growing again. At least this grass." A darker thought came into my mind. "Actually, I think we should stay closer to the middle of the road. Who knows what could be hiding in grass this tall." I started to drift towards the middle of the road, pulling Amber with me. "Just in case." We both kept walking, silently down the road for another hour. I checked my Pipboy for the time, and while it read fifteen minutes before five, the sun didn't look like it planned on going down any time soon. More importantly, it appeared as though while I wasn't paying attention, my Pipboy had picked up a radio frequency. I clicked it on, not really knowing what to expect. I knew that before the war, radios had been used for relaying messages and whatnot, and several emergency frequences had been established to warn people of impending threats to America and its citizens, so I pretty much expected people would be using it to communicate, or at least give one sided messages.

What I did not expect was the smooth jazz. Amber gave me a sideways glance as she speed her pace up to get a few feet in front of me. The jazz was... nice. It was soothing, and much different from the rambunctious brass of the pre-war American broadcasts and music we'd had back in the vault. I felt vaguely as though I was going to fall asleep on my feet. That got shaken out of my head as a voice boomed onto the radio, interupting the smooth jazz.

"Heeeelloo Wasteland! This is your humble disc jockey, your one man band and entertainer, your source of pure and unbiased news throughout the wastes, General Lee Kickass!"

I see what he did there.

"So, ready for your favorite part of the day? That's right, it's time for me to me to preach about the great country of pre-war America, and how greatful you should be for existing int the same dimension as it! Oh wait, news just in; this isn't shitty Enclave radio. Now it's time for the news. To all of you out there near Sucrosecountry, stay the HELL OUT OF THERE. There have been raiders pouring of of there for years, like it's their base, and I know what you're sayin' 'But General, we already know that!', but calm down a tick, cause shit's about to get serious. Raiders have stopped pouring out of that god forsaken town, only to be replaced by Theirshan Mercs. They've taken the town for their own, and have been kidnapping and selling anybody who comes within ten miles of the place. In other news, it seems that somebody has taken care of the Corpse stalker problem up in Scrappington... but we haven't heard from anybody in the town for days. The man who claims to have taken care of the Corpse stalkers says they were all fine and well when he left about a week ago, but since then we haven't seen anything out of that damned town. Not a single caravan has gone through it... and come out. That's all for now my babies! Remember not to trust Theirshans, not to let Taurens Hug you, and if you're passing by Scrappington, check it out, but be careful." Music resumed pooring out of the Pipboy, a exciting and captivating type I later learned was called 'Rock and Roll'.

I looked to Amber, who looked back to me, both of us confused. This wasn't what we thought we'd find out here. If there was a civilization this... organized, then they would have already woken up all the vaults, right?

"What do you think?" I asked her, then tripped over a bit of debris in the road and faceplanted in the asphalt. I rolled over onto my back, then rubbed my head and turned my gaze towards what had tripped me. A skeleton. Shit. Amber looked to me and paled, unholstering her rifle and putting it in the crook of her shoulder. There was a blip on her Pipboy, and she glanced at it, then turned back to what was ahead of us, staring intently.

"I think we just found Scrappington."

I spun around and pulled my bat from it's strap in what might have been the lamest looking maneuver in all of history, but it worked, and that was all that mattered. Okay, it worked well enough. Okay, so I might have fallen a bit, but that doesn't matter. As I pulled my bat back into a fighting position, I got my first glance at what we were facing, and I nearly fell on my ass again.

Standing only twenty feet from us, there was a medium sized figure wearing a shiny black armor that looked like it had been taken directly off of an army of ants from hell. The helmet itself was particularly unnerving, the huge yellow gray eyepieces completely covering its face with the exception of where his mouth and nose would have been. In its hands was a gray metal boxy thing, shaped roughly like a gun, with a handle and stock, but no barrel; and it was aimed right at us. As I saw a microfusion cell lodged into the back of the boxy length of metal, I realized what it was.

"Careful, he's got a laser rifle!" I shouted, my eye's never leaving our opponent. I didn't need to see Amber's face to know how she'd reacted.

"No shit, Sherlock." I could practically hear her eyes rolling. Of course she knew what it was, she was a gun fanatic, and we'd had specs on all types of weapons back in the vault. Hell, she'd probably fired a few! I was about to make a witty retort (Which would probably end up sounding like, 'well... shut up!') when the armored laser rifle opperator shouted something out.

"This is Weapons Specialist Sienna Auro of the Enclave, lower your weapons and surrender!" That was a female voice. Shit. I bet she'd be pissed about that 'he's got a laser rifle' thing. Stupid wasteland.

"Negative! You are in possession of Vault 48 Omega level equipment, and as former Overseer, I command you to stand down!" Wait, whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Vault equipment? Since when did we have any kickass gear? The blacked armored Enclave member looked a little shocked at that, at least as much as I could tell while she was wearing that armor.

"Uh, what are you both talking about?" I said. I felt stupid, but I'd be damned if I let this conversation go any further without me having any idea what they were talking about. Amber was the first to respond to my inquirey.

"She's wearing Power armor!" That helps. "It looks like the model we have in the vault, with a few modifications, but still ours. We had rooms and rooms full of them back in 48, but they weren't as... scary. I'm not supprised you don't know about it, it was on a need to know basis." Why does nobody tell me about cool stuff? Oh right, because I'm just a teacher. Was a teacher. Same difference.

The Weapons specialist shifted in her armor, turning her head back and forth to look at us. "Did you say Vault 48? The lost Vault?" I glanced to Amber. Since when were we lost? "I propose a amstice." Amber gritted her teeth, and looked like she was about to say otherwise, but I got there first.

"Agreed. How about we all lower our weapons on three?" I asked.

"Negative," She replied. "You have a bat, it wouldn't help me for you to just lower it. You throw you're bat to the side of the road, and then me and her can lower our weapons on three." Once again, Amber started to say something, but I acted faster. Like hell did I want to fight against someone we could reason with. I threw my bat to the side of the road, it clattered and rolled all the way to the high grass, where it stoped after pushing a few stalks down. "One... Two... Lower your weapons." They both did. Hurray for diplomacy.

Unfortunantly just as they did, a hairy, evil-looking, lanky creature burst from the grass. It looked like somebody had stretched out a chimpanze, then taught it how to give evil eyes and gave it huge ass claws and teeth to match. I had no idea how it chewed without slashing up its mouth. I also had no idea why these were the thoughts coming through my head as I flew back into the grass opposite where it had burst from, propelled by a blow from one of it's long arms. Even as long as fragile as they looked, they packed one hell of a punch. I crunched through the grass, rolling up onto my feet with the momentum from the blow, then running back out to the road to find our Enclave friend on the ground, and Amber firing her rifle into it's back as it clawed at her armor ineffectivly. Damn it, why couldn't I look bad ass when anybody was watching? I didn't have a weapon, so I pulled out the spoon from the Spoon King's pockets and jumped on the thing, pulling it to the ground, then proceeded to ram the spoon all the way through the back of it's head and out one of it's front eye sockets. I guess even though they could suvive a back full of bullets, their heads were pretty soft. I rose up off of the creature, panting, to find both our new Enclave friend and Amber staring at me.

"What?" I said.

"You're an idiot." They mirrored each other's speech. Great. Now Amber had a new friend, and they both thought I was a moron.

"So why are you here?" Amber questioned as she sat at a scrap metal table, made from what appeared to be the metal from the wing of an airplane. We had relocated to a... cafe? That's good enough to describe it. It was some sort of resturaunt, with several tables and a fridge, and what seemed to be a jury-rigged grill. Something inside of me knew that it wasn't in any way the last thing like that I'd see in the wastes.

After we'd brushed off most of the blood from our armor (Or in my case, tough clothing. Though if we were going to be fighting any more of those things, I wanted to get some armor!) Sienna had insisted on ashing the corpse with her laser rifle. Apparently where there was one of those things, there were bound to be more, especially since they were attracted to blood and the smell of fear. I really didn't know what she'd meant by that. After the beast was a pile of smoldering vaporized dust, we'd continued into town, and told her our story; of escaping the vault, killing the Spoon King, and then finding her. Not a long story.

"Well, about two weeks ago, I was injured pretty damned badly. Took a shotgun to the chest, and was nearly dying. So, my unit did the best they could to patch me up, then left me with some Enclave supporters so I could get my feet back under me, and continued with their directive." She spoke in a sad tone of voice, like she never expected to see her unit again, sitting opposite Amber and I at the makeshift table, drinking a Sunset Sarsparilla. "I honestly don't expect to see them again." Nailed it. "But that isn't going to stop me from looking. I'd heard they had come into this town about a week and a half ago, but when I got here this morning, there wasn't a person in sight." She sighed, and looked down at her helmet which lay next to her.

Without the helmet she was pretty smokin'. I mean, she wasn't Amber or anything, but this was the type I could have dreams about shacking up with without having to tell myself it couldn't happen later. She had jet black hair, cut short, but not in a military fashion, just hanging lose at a length of about four inches. I guess there wasn't much point of cutting your hair if you wore a helmet all the time anyways. Her face was nice too, it wasn't sharp like Amber's or Carmine's, but softer and more... homely? I don't know. Geez, second woman I see in the wastes (With a head.) and I was already starting to daydream about her.

"So how did you, you know, get back on your feet if you'd been shot? Two weeks isn't exactly a lot of time to heal." I asked. I hoped I didn't end up looking stupid, not having any medical experience at all. I was just basing this off how long it took me to heal a skinned knee.

"Well, the couple who they'd left me with were Prospectors, scavengers essentially, and they were searching around a hospital the day after I had been left behind, when they found a fully functioning Auto-Doc." She smiled as she mentioned the couple, then it fell off and she regained her poker face as she told the rest of her tale. "They were nice enough to let me use it for free before selling it off to the highest bidder. So, with my injuries healed, I went off to find my unit."

She glanced at the two of us, then turned back to her drink. "You're actually the first two people I've seen since them."

"So what is all of this stuff about a lost vault?" Amber asked, taking a sip of her Nuka Cola. There had been a vending machine in the corner, and with a bit of um... Crowbar Charisma, I'd convinced it to give us a bit of a discount on the two century old soft drinks and added the crowbar to my growing rupsack of wonders. So while they got their 'Mainstream' drinks, I was adventerous and got a bottle of Professor Halepenio. It tasted like burning, but, you know, the good kind.

"So you guys really don't know anything about the Enclave?" She gave us worried looks, but then explained. "You see, America's pre-war military decided that if war was comming, they wanted a few vaults to themselves, so that they would survive and continue on with American legend even if America herself didn't. They got three real vaults, but one didn't have a name, the other nobody cares to remember, because they don't want to admit that we came from a vault, and then there's the vault we never found. Vault 48." Amber and I looked at each other with confused expressions then turned back to our black haired friend.

She sighed, then continued. "Let me guess, you guys are really patriotic in your vault? Most of your education is spent praising America? Daily announcements about how great it was?" We nodded together. "Well, that's the same as the other vaults. The fact you had power armor in yours is just further evidence that it was origionally military. But, we never found your vault, and all data of it was lost, which is why you were never contacted to open your vault." That made since. A lot of sense. It was discomforting to know it in truth. Why hadn't our vault been opened? Why had they lost the data that showed where we were? Why the hell couldn't I have kickass armor? I looked towards my old, blood stained bat and let out a sigh. For a while, we just sat there and drank.

"So, you said you just got here this morning?" Amber's voice broke the silence.

"Yeah, why?" She responded, rolling around her empty Cola bottle on the table with a finger.

"Have you checked it out at all?"

"No, not really." She stopped rolling the bottle and grinned wryly up at us. "I try to not make it a habit to wander around ghost towns."

"Why?" Amber inquired. I could guess. Tribals out here must all be afraid of ghost.

She rolled her eyes at us, but then the grin slid off of her face. "Oh. Right. I keep forgetting that you're fresh out of a vault. Well, it's not ghosts. I was actually trying to make a joke about that." Swing and a miss. "You see, the wasteland isn't exactly a friendly place, so when you see a town that had people living in it, and they aren't there any more, it's likely that something made them that way. Slavers, Corpsestalkers, et cetera. Either way, it's generally best to avoid them. I was just popping in here to make sure there wasn't anybody left, and then was leaving as I found you guys."

I looked around at the everly emptier looking cafe, then glanced out a window at darker clouds that were rolling in. "Uh, so what should we do now?"

She saw where my gaze fell and turned to examine the clouds for herself. She frowned at the dark grey of the oncoming clouds, and turned back to us. "I'd suggest we get out of here. Best to leave a town like this in the dust. If you leave now, you might be able to find a shack to weather this storm out in." She gave me a confused look, I guess the shock on my face was pretty visible.

"You're not comming with us?" She shook her head, then stopped, looked pensive and asked another question.

"Where are you headed?"

"New Houston." Amber and I awnsered at the same time.

Sienna smiled again. "I'm heading all the way to the Enclave's High Plain outpost, but that's on my way. I guess I'll travel with you until then. If you'll have me, of course."

Amber grinned at me and I grinned right back. It'd be nice to have another companion on the road, especially if there were more Corpse stalkers any where nearby. Amber replied with genuine happyness in her voice, instead of her general 'Diplomat's' voice. "We'd be happy too."

Thunder rolled across the fields of grass outside, followed by a nearly solid wall of rain. When it rained in Texas, it poured. I rose from my sitting position at the table, picking up my empty drink and tossing it into a trashcan. Though the way the rest of the town looked, it seemed like proper ediquet would have been to through it onto the floor.

"Do you really think we should head out now? Seems like one hell of a storm out there..." Amber and I looked at her, she was our source of knowlage about the outside world. She bit at her lip pensivly.

"It is a pretty bad storm..." More thunder boomed outside, much closer this time, and Amber jumped in suprise at the percussion. "We could stay here. But I don't know what happened here. At least one of us should stay alert at all times, and if we end up sleeping, we'll have to do it in shifts." Was she really this afraid of a ghost town? Then I remembered DJ Kickass's message; this town had been full of people under a week ago. But still, like hell was I going out in that storm.

It only took a few hours to clear out the cafe and board up the windows and doors with tables. The storm outside was going from bad to worse, blue white lightning danced around the city, slashing through the air and striking the ground and buildings around us, while the rain was only getting thicker and heavier. The last rays of sun that had flashed through the cloud cover were quick to get the hell out of there as night fell. Amber and Sienna had scrounged up two matresses. The things were everywhere on the upper levels they'd said, however there wasn't a blanket in sight. Stupid wasteland. It wasn't until I sat down to take the first watch that I realized how tired I was. Turns out that bashing someone's brains in, listening to a person's last words, walking several miles, and then running a monster's brain through with a sharpened spoon really wears a guy out. So, as my shift neared it's end, Amber's Pipboy alarm (Which was actually pretty quiet compared to mine. Was there a volume control somewhere that nobody had told me about?) woke her up and she walked over to me, tapped my shoulder and relieved me of duty. It only took me a few seconds to fall into blissfully ignorant sleep. It only took one for a scream to wake me up.

Shit. 


	3. Chapter 3

I practically flew off of my mattress as I heard the scream, jumping to my feet and grabbing my bat from where it had lain beside me. Amber was just as fast, and had her finger on the trigger of her rifle and her rifle pointed towards the source of the noise in only a fraction of a second. Sienna on the other hand didn't budge. Apparently being in the pseudo military of the Enclave didn't make her a good soldier. Yellow gold light glinted off the barrel of Amber's rifle as it remained trained on the source of the noise as she strafed over to Sienna and kicked her to wakefulness.

"What the hell are you doing?" She shouted as she rolled off of her mattress and slammed down onto the hard concrete floor of the cafe. She looked at a Nuka-Cola brand clock ticking away in a corner of the ceiling, then turned back to Amber. "It's not even time for my shift yet! And what the hell are you aiming at with that stupid ri-" She was cut off by a second scream from the doorway that lead to the second story of the building. At that she scrambled over to where her old rusted laser rifle lay, snatching it up and aiming it towards the doorway where light from the small lamp we'd rigged up made shadows dance to an ungodly rhythm, seeming to twist and writhe on the ground of the doorway.

Hurray for Ghost towns.

"So what do we do now?" I asked, my eyes never leaving the doorway.

"What the hell are you asking me for!" Sienna shouted back in retort. "I'm a member of the Enclave not the Van Helsings! I already told you I don't believe in ghosts!"

From the peripherals of my vision, I could see Amber raise an eyebrow. "For somebody who doesn't believe in ghosts, you're sure quick to blame this on one."

I gritted my teeth. Possible supernatural screams were sporadically issuing through a doorway that may or may not lead directly to the cold depths of hell, and they were poking fun at each other. Naturally. "Okay! Regardless of ghosty properties or not, what the hell are we going to do now?"

"Keep your weapons on that doorway." Sienna said as she moved behind me, towards the door. There was the noise of her shaking and hitting the door that we'd boarded up. There was a loud crash and the sound of shattering glass, followed by a strange 'Whoooooorp' sound. She returned to her position after she fired a couple of shots at it. "Well, I don't want to freak you guys out, but I'm pretty sure we're trapped in here. I threw a trashcan against one of the windows that was partially unboarded, and it didn't break. It just cracked then somehow resealed itself." She took half a second to pull her helmet off the ground and put it on, and then pressed a small black indention on the side of it. "My EFS isn't picking anything up. What about yours?"

I'd totally forgotten about the EFS. I'd turned it off yesterday when it kept telling be about all of the radroaches that were swarming around in the grass, filling my vision with red. Now I turned it on again, and there was only one tick mark to be seen... directly in front of me. Shit. I shifted to the left and right to try and triangulate its position. It was only 3 meters ahead of me. Double Shit. There was a sound of a glass bottle being knocked around on the floor as Amber started moving towards the door.

"There's only one hostile, and I think it's upstairs." She said calmly. Her brown combat armor was silent as she moved forwards, the only sounds were her feet crushing bits of glass as she moved. I was suddenly glad for the thick boots of my Vault suit.

"How far can your EFS pick up hostiles?" Sienna asked, her voice distorted by her Enclave helmet, as she started to move forwards too.

"Thirty feet." Amber responded. She'd reached the doorway, and had her back against the wall as she began to peer around the black corner. She pulled her head back and slipped on her Security Combat armor helmet, then tapped the side, causing the eyes of the helmet to glow a bright red. Night vision, I guessed. Seriously, I want a cool helmet and armor too.

"Mine's fifteen. That means it's on the third story. Meet you there." Suddenly they both dashed through the doorway and started running up the stairs as a third scream ripped its way through the night. I scrambled after them, clutching my bat in one hand and fishing the pistol out of my rucksack with the other. I might not know how to use it, but I'd be damned if I ran in there to fight a screaming monster thingie without some firepower. I slipped the pistol into my jury rigged holster and gripped the bat with both hands as I ran up the stairs. I caught up to my companions as I ran up the stairs. Apparently even though the armor they were wearing was badass, it was still heavy and it slowed them down. I was the first thought the third story's stairwell doorway, and the first to see the monstrosity that awaited us there.

Attached to the ceiling was a little girl. Or I should say half of a little girl. Her lower half had been removed and her upper half was now attached to a spider-like machine that crawled along the ceiling, gears and pistons clicked and smashed together all over it, small arms armed with blades and chainsaws spun and twisted together, it's metal was silver white, and it gleamed in the light of my Pipboy's flashlight feature. Unfortunately for me, even as the Pipboy s light allowed me to see what I was facing, it let the mecha-monster see me too. I leapt out of the doorway with only an instant to spare as a bright white light flashed out of the little girls mouth and hit the doorway, causing it to crumble. Great. Now I was trapped in here with a mecha-monster. Alone. I pulled my little possibly nine millimeter pistol from my pocket and started to unload it into the machine. I pulled the trigger and the percussion that followed was deafening, the bullet ripped it's way through one of the monster's many legs and through the wall behind it, nothing stood in that bullets way. What the hell. I glanced towards my Pipboy screen and mentally made it flash to my equipment menu, where I saw a bright green solid box next to a weapon it labeled: The Terror of Vault 48. How did it know what to call it? Hell, how did it know that I had it? Freaking Pipboy magic.

I barely twisted to the right as my entire left side began to burn with pain. The Monster hand fired it's light cannon at me again, striking a few feet to my left, but the heat that it produced was more than enough to singe all of my exposed skin on my lower left side, which, thanks to my Pipboy and Vault suit, was kept to a mercifully low total of my fingers and a bit of exposed wrist. I fell to the floor and rolled, swinging the Terror of Vault 48 up to point at the monster that lay now directly in my sights.

!

It was dead after the third shot, which ripped its way through the center of the mechanical monster, tearing out several important looking components, but I kept firing until I'd emptied the clip. It hung onto the ceiling for a few more seconds, but then fell to the floor with a sickening crunch, landing on top of the half body of the little girl. As blood pooled around it, and her organs began to spill out onto the floor, it was my turn to throw up.

I'd finished emptying my stomach into a trashcan as Amber and Sienna burst through the rubble filled doorway. They both froze at the sight of the mechanical demon lying on the body of a little girl. Amber joined me at the trashcan, and Sienna just shook her head at it.

"What happened?" Sienna asked, getting straight to the point.

"The monster... was attached to the little girl. She didn't look alive," Was that really all I'd based it on before I opened fire and put her body in the way of harm? "And it fired beams of light from her mouth, so I unloaded into it with little Terror here." I wagged the pistol in the air. She turned back to the monstrosity and then back to my pistol.

"That, did that?" She asked in disbelief, then shrugged when I nodded. "That's a Life Support Unit. Model B2 if I'm remembering right. It was supposed to keep people who had been dismembered alive until they could be fixed up properly." She shuddered, a weird thing to see since she was wearing her full demonic power armor. "I guess this thing stopped waiting for people to be dismembered and did it itself."

There was a moan from a doorway across from us, directly behind the monster. I spun towards it and pulled out my bat, half expecting another monster. Only then did I realize that my EFS was reading friendlies behind the door. I walked towards in even as Sienna held her laser rifle steady, barrel never leaving that door. I tried to open it, but it was locked, so I got to work trying to pick it with my tools. It only took me a few minutes to understand that it was above my knowledge, so I did the sensible thing, and kicked the door open. Behind it lay a scene nearly as disgusting as the monster that had guarded it.

In one corner of the room there was a pile of dismembered bodies and body parts. There was blood everywhere, pooling around body parts like small lakes. In the opposite corner there were about twenty people shoved together, packed into a cage like cattle. A few looked like they were already dead, held up only by the others in the cage with them. I ran to the cage's door and wasted no time trying to pick it, instead smashing the lock off with my bat and throwing open the door.

To my surprise, the dead looking ones were a lot more energetic than the others.

Ghouls. People that have been rotted inside and out by radiation, and yet strung together by it in a way that makes them nearly impervious to age, makes them immune to radiation, sometimes even stronger in it's presence. Some still retain their normal selves, but all the more likely, they tend to lose themselves and become nothing more than vessels for their most primal instincts: to kill and consume.

At least that's how Ghoulie George the Godteller told it. Ghoulie said he'd been a preacher before the war, and his name was George, but he liked the way they three G's came together with the new name he'd given himself. He'd been alive since before the great war, and had been in the settlement of Scrappington since it had been founded nearly a hundred years ago. And he explained how the town had fallen into the predicament that I'd saved them from.

"See, we were in a right heap o' trouble when ya got us out of there. Doc Honeydew had gotten the entire town up there, saying that he'd witnessed a miracle, that he'd got his old medical bot up and running again. Unfortunately, it decided it didn't want to help us, it decided it wanted to 'Fix' us. So we got locked up in that cage, and it had been pulling one or two of us out a day before you got there, and choppin' us up." Ghoulie George patted me on the back. He was a pretty nice guy when you got past his rotting flesh and all. Which Amber and Sienna hadn't. Sienna just rolled her eyes at me and called me a ghoul hugger and Amber had payed another visit to Doctor Trashcan. As she was, she was munching on some two hundred year old snack cakes, trying her best not to look at the rotting corpse I was talking too.

"And that's why," Ghoulie George said with a sigh, "The town has decided to give ya a reward, of two hundred caps." He spat at a nearby bush. "O' course I'm the only one who put anything inta the 'Emergency Fund' so it's really like I'm giving you it myself." He turned back to me and gave me... what I could only take to be a earnest grin. "Not that ya don't deserve it. Mighty fine work ya did in there." As he said this he passed a bag full of bottlecaps into my hands. Awesome. He started chuckling (Though with his raspy ghoul voice it took me a bit to realize that he wasn't growling.) as he saw my reaction to the sack of caps.

"I forget ya'll 're new to the wastes. Out here we tend ta use old bottlecaps for moneys, or we just barter." Huh.

"Why would you use bottlecaps?" I inquired of the elderly ghoul preacher.

He chuckled a bit more before answering, scratching his head with a scarcely fleshed finger. "I've been through a lot since the bombs fell, fighting for myself, preachin' my message throughout the wastes, but I don't think I've ever asked myself that. One day I just saw people usin' caps, and it just worked, I guess." I shrugged and laughed along, and slipped the bag into my rucksack, packing it underneath a few clips of spare ammunition I'd found searching the upper levels of the cafe. I'd felt weird after seeing all of the people we'd saved go back to their normal lives; it felt like stealing. But hell, they didn't complain so I didn't either.

I'd taken to wearing Terror in my holster on my custom made armor, smiling at how comfortable it was, even though it was more than a few pounds heavier. After getting the townsfolk out of that cage, they'd pretty much done everything they could to help us out; which was how I'd got my newish armor. A old woman by the name of Beatrice the Wicked had offered to fix up my armor, and the results KICKED ASS. Most of my custom modifications had been removed, replaced by much cooler solid iron and steel platings, with lots of leather and wool padding in between. My new holster was a actual leather holster, which had been sowed into the Vault suit itself. The giant '48' still ran across the back though. Might as well as told her to take it off, but whatever.

After I shot that deranged robotic monstrosity, and we'd gotten the people out of that cage, we'd all headed downstairs to try to find out how to unseal the doors and windows, only to be informed that they'd unlocked the second the robot lost control of the building. It's scary how much control those pre-war scientists were willing to give these machines. The towns people had shacked us up in the local inn (Still no blankets.), and we'd gone right to sleep. Well, me and Amber had gone right to sleep. Sienna had decided to get into a drinking battle with a few of the local ghouls, and was still sleeping off her hangover. We kicked Sienna awake around eleven, then packed up, refilled out supplies, and headed out, waving farewell to our new friends.

I still didn't know why I was leaving. The new Mayor had offered us housing and hinted that there were jobs aplenty that would need filling, (With all of the people who'd been ripped apart by that machine, I didn't doubt him.) but Amber had been adamant that we leave the town, and get on with our 'Quest' to reach New Houston, and try to raise the city. She'd been talking to some of the locals, and after learning that none of them knew about New Houston s safety feature, had gained a even stronger desire to liberate New Houston from it's underground prison. Still, for some reason I felt like I should stick with her, so I did. Sienna came too, though she might have stayed if her judgment hadn't been so impaired by a massive headache and partial dehydration.

But all the same, we started off towards New Houston again, packs a bit heavier, and my armor a bit more badass.

Walking is boring. I'd gotten a sneak preview on the march from the Vault to Scrappington, but yesterday I was still in a a state of constant awe of the sky and the colors. But that was yesterday, and today was boring. We walked past burned down houses and forgotten gas stations, followed by the ever present golden green grasses that shifted besides us, blowing gracefully in the wind. I tried to start up a conversation with Amber, but all she'd talk about was guns. I mean, that's great and all, but it gets pretty dry after an hour and a half. So I went to the next person in my party, Sienna. The conversation I started lasted about five seconds, and went like this:

"Hey, so what's life like in the Enclave?"

"Your face."

Yeah. I didn't know what to make of that, so I chalked it up to her saying that I was good looking, and military life was much the same. Freaking Texans.

And so, I was left to talk to myself. That conversation was even worse:

-Why did we leave the Vault?-

-'Cause shut up.-

Man, I can be a prick. But it got me thinking. Why had I left the Vault? For the life of me I couldn't think of a reason, aside from, 'Because she's pretty and talked to me like a person'. In four hours, I'd gone from kickin' it easy in my vault to beating brains out in the wastes. I didn't regret it though. I mean, I had everything I could have ever wanted, and I traded it all away, for a taste of Adventure, which mostly involved me killing shit. Still, I couldn't bring myself to say that I wouldn't make the same choices again. Freaking Texans.

The sun was seemed to waver endlessly at its peak, perpetually at its hottest, and the storm that had passed through had made it so humid it we were practically swimming through the air. I tried to count the clouds but I got a head ache. Eventually I wound up just playing with the toggles on my Pipboy, exploring all of it's features, both old and new. I discovered some cool stuff, like a chart that actively displays my physical condition, including how close limbs are to breaking, and how far away I was from dying of dehydration, and I found another section that kept track of... stuff? It had tags like 'Quests Completed' and 'Creatures killed' (Both of which had a small one displayed promptly besides them.), but also stuff like 'Challenges Completed' and 'Bugs Squashed'. How it would know stuff like this escaped me. As I flicked through the menus, I my eyes fell back across the radio tab, where they pointed out to me that there was another broadcast available. It read, 'Enclave B9-A113 Distress Signal'. Great. More distress was all we needed. I flipped it on anyways, and was immediately assaulted by static so loud I missed my Pipboy twice before slapping it off of the frequency. Amber shot me a glare. I don't think she'd even noticed I'd stopped listening to her gun speech until now.

"I see you got that signal too?" Sierra said through her helmet's voice filter as she caught up to me with a few extra steps. "I got it about an hour ago, but it's just static. Happens all the times with all of the shitty reception out here." She gestured to a pair of crumbling metal towers off to the north.

I glanced north, and saw the metal towers, but shook my head. "I don't think that the signal is coming from anything like that. Those towers were probably out of date before atomic cars hit the streets, I doubt I could synch my Pipboy with them if I tried. No, this signal's too strong and clear to be coming out of one of those towers."

I saw genuine surprise in her eyes as she looked towards the towers again. Or at least I assumed it was surprise. Hard to tell behind a half inch of tinted yellow visor. "Then what do you think it was?"

"Did you catch the name?" I asked, and then held up my Pipboy to her so she could read it off when she shook her head. "It's an emergency frequency, probably only able to be decrypted by Enclave units only. Or special officers radios." I added the last part as she pointed to her Enclave helmet.

She shrugged. "Now that I think about it... most officers do have radios attached to their waists. To big to be the same type of model that's in our helmets." She stopped where she stood, then spun to look at me. "If that was a Enclave distress signal, we need to go help!"

I caught the urgency in her voice, even through her helmet's voice filter. "Okay, I'll try to decrypt it. Give me a few seconds." Sierra unslung her laser rifle as I fiddled with the buttons of my Pipboy, looking for a 'decrypt' button. It only took me a few seconds to find, but I had to dig a sensor model out of my packs to get it working properly. Meanwhile Amber had realized we were no longer following behind her and turned around and marched back to where we stood.

"What's going on?" She asked, eyeing Sierra's laser rifle.

"Someone's in trouble." I answered, watching as the decryption meter on my Pipboy slowly rose to one hundred percent. The Broadcast immediately began playing.

"-enty of them. We're without food, and I don't think we'll be getting any any time soon. Those... things seem perfectly happy to just wait as we all rot to death. They seem to be defined just perfectly to take us down. Ha, the only one of us who stood a chance was busy using the head. 2nd Lieutenant Ermical was the only one of us who might have been able to fight back. Fuck. I don't think any of us are making it out of here alive. Or dead. either way, we're not getting out of here except in those things stomachs. What a pain in the ass... Oh well. I guess I always wanted to die here of all places, it's got a nice ring to it. This is Private Dan Karric, signing off. God bless the Enclave." MESSAGE REPEATS "This is Private Dan Kerric, of squad thirty three six dee four of the American Enclave. We've been trapped on Hero's Hill by a swarm of monstrous bugs. Half of my squad's been wiped out, just paralyzed to await death by dehydration or being eaten alive. They chew right through metal. We're in between a burger joint and the memorial, and there must be at least twenty of them."

The message repeated itself.

"You've got to be kidding me! The 'People' in danger are Enclave!" Amber shouted as me and Sierra started towards the new marker on my map, 'Hero's Hill'. "A whole squad of armored badasses like you got their asses whooped, and you're both still going to go try to help them! If Enclave didn't stand a chance against them, what use are we going to be?"

I shrugged as I pulled my bat out of its sling on my backpack. "People need us." I said as I smiled back to her. She was right though. This was crazy. What was I doing? Freaking Texan morals.

Sierra spun around on her metal heels to face Amber. "Listen. It's my people who are stuck up there, not yours. If you don't want to come along, you're welcome to wait here." She then turned around and continued marching towards Hero's Hill. Amber looked at me hopefully. I could only shrug again.

"People need us Amber. I'm going to help." I gave her another wry grin. "We're Americans; we're supposed to help the unfortunate, right?" I marched on after Sierra. I heard her sigh.

"Well, at least I'll finally get a chance to shoot something I can kill. Maybe." She said begrudgingly as she jogged to catch up with us, slipping her helmet over her head.

It took us maybe a half hour to reach the base of Hero's Hill. The Hill itself wasn't all that large, probably smaller than the hill our Vault was built into, but in the miles of flatland that surrounded it, it stuck out. At the top, there was a large bronze statue of two men, dashing towards their enemies valiantly, frozen machine guns firing in their hands. A memorial for the Brazilian Inquisition, I guessed by their metallic Uniforms. The three of us were hiding behind a burned out nuclear powered car, hiding from a creature that none of us could have even imagined.

A big, shiny, silver fly. Sierra called them bloatflies when we first saw them, but my Pipboy registered them as Teslawasps. Regardless, we didn't take any chances. From our car, we could see fifteen of them, all buzzing about rather innocently for a species that was reported to have murdered a squadron of Enclave soldiers.

Well, innocently enough until one of the many streetlights that littered the streets flickered on, and was immediately set upon by every single one of the foot long insects, the other five swarmed out of a nearby building, all of them slashing and hacking at the lamp with razor sharp jaws. It took me a few minutes to realize they weren't just slashing at it, but EATING it. They very quickly devoured part of the steel casing and started biting and chewing at the internal wiring, feasting on the flow of electricity. I now saw how a bunch of Enclave soldiers in their semi-nuclear electrical suits would be a tasty meal for the Teslawasps. The same type of suit that Sierra was crouching directly next to me in. Shit. A quick look up and down the street leading up the hill showed me that they must had been eating all of the streetlamps one by one as they lit up. All of them had been eaten their empty metal carcasses laying everywhere, with the exception of one directly above us, and the one almost at the top of the hill, that they were feasting on. Suddenly the lamp above us sparked and sputtered to life, throwing a bit of extra light down on us. Double shit.

"We've got to get out of here." I whispered, grabbing Amber's shoulder and starting to sneak towards the abandoned burger joint half way up the hill, trying to keep abandoned vehicles between us and the monster bugs. Just as we all made it through the door of the 'Burger Bob's Grill and Bar', the lamp they'd been swarming collapsed and shut off, and they made a bee line for the light where we'd just been. I shut the door and let out a sigh. We were out of danger, if just for a second.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Sierra asked. "They ATE a streetlamp! How are we supposed to stand up to that?"

"Hello? Guns?" Amber waver her gun in the air as she checked and reinserted a magazine.

"You don't think that squad had weapons?" She facepalmed, metal clacking on metal as her glove slapped her armored forehead.

"No, I know they had weapons, but there's something else I know." She put her rifle down on the table she leaned against. "All of you Enclave have laser weapons, right? That's what you said, isn't it?"

Sierra crossed her arms, and (I imagined) frowned behind her helmet. "I might have said something like that, but so?"

"All those things out there are reflective. They're all shiny and silvery and metallic. I don't think Energy Weapons would have done shit to them."

Oooooooh. So that was where that was going. Okay. "So you're plan is just to shoot the living shit out of them?" I asked.

She shrugged. "It's worked before, hasn't it?"

"Uh, that's only worked for me a third of the times I've fought something. Though to be fair the others involve silverware and sports equipment. Do you really think we can take these things?"

she lifted her rifle back up and held it in a menacing manner. "If you can get me onto the roof of this building, I think I can take all of them down before they get to the door. They don't seem to be able to fly much higher then six or seven feet, so I don't think being exposed on the roof will be a problem."

"Do we have a backup plan?" Sierra asked, breaking her silence.

Amber looked to me. "You still have you're bat, right?"

Plan B sucks.

For the most part, it involved me standing just inside the door with my bat, with Sierra next to me with a lead pipe she'd found in the kitchen, ready to smack any of those wasps down if they decided to gnaw through the door. Still better than no plan though.

I knew plan A had started when I heard rounds starting to fire off on the roof. I stood stock still, Hoping she could get them all before they got to the door. I counted the shots... One... Two... Four... Ten... Fourteen... The bullets stopped. That meant that either she'd gotten nearly half of them with one bullet to two beasties, or they were to close to fire. I just hoped for the first one. Naturally my hopes were shattered, along with a pane of glass behind me as one of the creatures burst in through a window. Of course they would go for a window! Windows aren't invincible! I spun to start swinging at the Tesla wasp, but Sierra got to it first and slashed at it. It bumbled just to the right of the blow, and shot a barb from it's stinger as Sierra's momentum carried her past it. Now a barb like that wouldn't normally have done anything, but something was off about this one.

As the barb hit her abdomen, blue sparks arched all around her, the air smelling instantly of ozone as she crumpled to the floor. Well, now that was two reasons why these things could take out fully armored Enclave soldiers; their weapons did nothing to them, and the creatures had tiny EMP blasters on their arses. I brought my bat down on the Wasps head seconds later, cracking it's head's exoskeleton and sending the corpse spinning to the floor.

I started to run towards my downed friend, but two more Teslawasps flew in through the broken window. I slashed at one with a sideways swing and clipped its side, sending it flailing into the wall to my left, struggling to stay airborne. The second shot one of its barbs at me, and it struck me just above my left shoulder, sending electricity arching all about me. The pain was blinding, sending my vision into the red for half a second as the creature came in for the kill. Unfortunately for it, the electricity that exploded out from the barb wasn't nearly as debilitating for me as it was for Sierra, and I swung my bat in an upwards arc with my good arm, crushing it's mandibles and launching it into the ceiling where it hit with a sickening splatter, then fell to the ground. I dashed towards Sierra and started to shake her. Please don't let that have killed my friend. Friend? I'd only known her for, like, a day. Barely. I guest the wastelands do bring out the best in some of us.

"Stop shaking me!" Her muffled voice came through her helmet, the normal electronic sound was absent though. Relief flooded through me. Her voice must have been fried along with the rest of the electronics in her suit when that burst of electricity hit her. "I only heard fourteen shots, and I think you just killed two, so stay focused until you've killed the other four."

I gritted my teeth and looked back to the broken window; where another pair of wasps flew in right on cue. This pair was easy. I slapped one out of the air with my bat, sending bits of insect everywhere and spun to the side as I saw the other was about to release another barb. A quick blow to the head ended it's troubling behavior. I turned back to Sierra for a second to see if any of the barbs had hit her.

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my neck, and smelled the ozone as electricity arched forth from a small chitin barb. Shit. I collapsed to the floor. Apparently even if I could still fight with taking one in the arm, a barb to the neck was debilitating. The other three floated in calmly, starting to cover their mandibles in the slime that allowed them to chew through metal and began floating towards Sierra. Wait, three? I guess Amber missed one. They began to list towards Sierra, lowering themselves to feed when a gunshot rang out. Then another. Then one more, and the last of the Wasps fell.

"I don't miss twice you... exoskeletoned bastards!" Amber shouted as she lowered her rifle, walking down from the employee stairs that she had disappeared up half an hour before. Ouch, good job for trying, but negative points for the shitty insult. It took to long too.

"That joke... sucked." I managed to say as I lay on the floor. Several of my muscles were still convulsing.

"Oh shit!" She shouted as she ran to my electrified body. "What happened?"

"Apparently the little 'Exoskeletoned Bastards' can shoot barbs that release a small electromagnetic pulse on contact." Sierra awnsered for me.

"Oh. I guess that makes sense. It'd explain how they took on the Enclave."

I tried to get up but only succeeded in slamming my face against the cold tile of the burger house s floor. "Ouch." Was all I could manage this time.

It took more than half an hour for me to regain enough feeling and control of my legs to stand, and an hour after that to regain all the feeling in my fingers. At first glance, I'd assumed that Sierra's armor was shot, but upon closer inspection, I realized that it had protection against this type of thing, and I was able to turn it back on and reset it just by plugging in my Pipboy and pressing a few buttons. After we had Sierra back with us we were ready to head out, but she stopped us.

"We still need to find those soldiers."

Amber crossed her arms and scowled. "They're dead."

"So? I still need to bury them." Amber looked at me for confirmation that this was okay. I just shrugged. I couldn't stop her from tending to her dead compatriots.

It only took us a few minutes to find their camp, just next to the burger house. There were metal shells of armor scattered everywhere. There were twelve. I was surprised that Sierra didn't reject looting their weapons and ammunition, or even take the slightest offense when we started searching the bodies before pulling them wherever Sierra wanted. We were only able to find one laser rifle though, the rest had been chewed on by the Teslawasps, along with all of the Microfusion cells. As Sierra went about digging holes and dragging what was left of the soldiers into them, I noticed one of the bodies wasn't decked out in armor, but a dark green type of suit. 2nd Leutenant Ermical. He hadn't been wearing power armor, so he might have been able to fight those creatures, or at least escape. But instead he lay there on the ground, electrical barb through his neck, and chest cavity burned out by acid. I saw his dog tag hanging from his neck and picked it up. Don't really know why I did it, but I slipped it into my bags and poked around the camp some more. There were only two tents, and the first one I checked was just full of sleeping bags (Though I scored a couple packs of 'Junk Food' and another kickass magazine on heavy weapons.). The second tent was much more rewarding. It was obviously the Officers, and had a desk that they must have pulled out of one of the buildings. Several clipboards lay on the tables, along with a Terminal and a what looked like a weird keychain. I downloaded the Terminals files onto my Pipboy for later then picked up the keychain. It was of the trademark 'Vault Boy' holding a crowbar and a bat while staring innocently off into the distance, and there was an Inscription on the bottom:

-Charisma is most effective when you can back up your arguments with a crowbar!-

I chuckled and slid its metal ring onto a similar one on my Pipboy, where it fit more snugly than it had a right too. I felt more 'Crowbar Charismatic' Just holding it. I looked to my right to see a large metal orb, about a foot in diameter, sitting on a table, several antennae sticking out of it in all directions. I tapped it but received only a metallic echo as a response. I turned to walk out when I heard a small robotic voice echo out of my Pipboy.

Please don't leave. Did you get my signal?

I spun back to the orb, which was now glowing and clicking and whirring to life. As I watched, it rolled it's burnished metal body off the table and wobbled in the air, floating as if held by some invisible hand. It shuddered in the air and dipped a few inches, but rose back up. Make that an invisible hand with Parkinson s. It whirred and beeped excitedly, and a the small robotic voice spoke through my Pipboy again.

I am Enclave Sandstorm Eyebot number B9-A113. Did you receive my signal?

I hit it with a bat. 


	4. Chapter 4

In my defense, It was a scary robot. Okay, a bit scary.

Okay, it was a floating orb that said 'Hello'. But still, I don't think I'm to blame for hitting it with a bat. I mean, it was whirring and beeping and displaying messages on my Pipboy! That's scary!

Amber smacked me over the head for what must have been the hundredth time. "You! Smashed! A friendly! What the hell does 'Green, keep it clean; Red, it's dead' mean to you anyways!"

I flinched repeatedly as she hit me over the head with the sweet Heavy Weapons magazine I'd found, using force to emphasize each word. It was like being back in kindergarten again. I snatched my magazine away from her avenging hands. "Okay! I get it! It was dumb! I'm sorry!"

She glared at me. "Oh, you will be if Sierra can't get that thing up and running." She frowned and glanced over to the corner of the tent where Sierra was tinkering with the bot on a table, tools laying all about her in disarray. Then she said in a hushed tone, "Did you see her reaction when she saw what you'd done to it? I could have sworn she was going to cry!"

I looked at Sierra. Her white undershirt and sweatpants were covered in oil stains, and her hair was mussed from both being inside of a helmet all day and the fact that she had a habit of rubbing her head when she was confused, even when her hands were covered in mechanical oil and grease. I felt like an idiot for hitting it and making her so... sad like that. There wasn't a proper word to describe how bad I felt, or how much I hoped she wouldn't stay like that. "Yeah. I hope it's all right. If you'd both just let me take a look at it-" Amber snatched the magazine back from me and swatted me with it again.

"No! We're not letting you touch it! Last time you touched it you crushed half it's internal components!"

"That was an accident!"

"You hit it with a bat!"

I rubbed my temples with my hands. This was a fight I couldn't win. I sat down at the 2nd Lieutenant's desk. Amber took a seat in a metal chair against one of the walls and started reading my magazine; Heavy weapons or not, she still liked guns. I looked to Sierra again. She worked without pause, hands constantly working and twisting parts together. Her black Power armor sat next to her, shining in the dim light of a small floodlight powered by a fission battery. With nothing to do, I flipped to the notes section of my Pipboy and began going over the Lieutenants journals.

-12:43PM;3/5/2267- First day on the job today. I knew they'd be field promoting somebody today, but me? I'm nothing special! Sure I've my kill count could climb to the moon if each kill was an ant, but hell! I'm a soldier, not a leader! I guess I'm lucky though, since I'm still not really making any decisions. Head gave me some pretty specific orders: Search the town. Didn't even tell me what I'm looking for. Still, easy orders.

-3:21PM;4/7/2267- Two days later and I've nearly gotten Court Marshaled twice. What the hell? This isn't what I signed up for- Oh wait, I didn't sign up for this at all. Some of the boys found a pre-war liquor store, so guess what they did? That's right, they donated it all to medical for anesthetics. And by that I mean they got drunk and raped a fellow soldier (Female). Naturally. And who get's blamed for this? Me. Cause you know, fuck me.

-2:11AM;4/14/2267- Whoo hoo. Another week of this and I'll be raping chicks too. I'm mot sur if I'm clear to be writiing this, buf uck it. i barely can type anymore... here's my report: being an officer sucks asss. we havn't found shit, and headquarters has started demanding results. results from NOTHING. they want me to start shitting gold bricks from the crap they've been feeding me. All i know is that there's NOTHING HERE. some boys fround a tunnel under the city, so well check that out later today. or tommorow. i have no Idea. hurray for whiskey though, it's the only reason i can fall asleep now.

-9:33AM;4/16/2267- Fuck. I really hope there's a way to delete that previous entry. I'm not good with computers. I'll ask Private Santos tomorrow. Good news though, the tunnel under the city was full of good stuff, old computers, mainframes, unused bots, the works. All we have to do is decrypt one little computer, then we're in. With Benign here, we'll have it done in no time.

My eyes flickered to the top right corner of my Pipboy. 5:45PM;5/2/2267. There was only one entry left.

-9:45PM;4/27/2267- Day have turned into weeks. Benign was only a few bytes from decrypting it when he went into lock-down mode. His sensors read some sort of danger in the ventilation system while his guards went to go grab a Nuka and locked him up tight. He's already started broadcasting an emergency signal, even though he's not damaged. Some of the men saw ticks on their EFS too, but they say it'd been flitting back and forth for a couple days, probably radroaches. I don't think so though... Must have been one hell of a monster to scare him to this. I'm going to have the boys try to flush out the vents tomorrow, try to get whatever's in there out. Geez, I don't remember any of my COs having problems like this, so why me?

Oh god. They must have flushed the wasps right out of the tunnels where they were feeding on some innocent source of electricity and accidentally made themselves out to be targets. I saw the battered hunk of metal Sierra was still fiddling with in a new light. He'd woken up for the first time in at least half a week, finally free of hostiles and danger, and I'd smashed him with a bat. Man did I feel like a dick. Suddenly there was a rush of mechanical whirrs and clicks, and the fwoosh of an air regulation system, and the rusted orb slowly ascended into the air, much steadier than he'd been before.

"I got it!" Sierra shouted, kissing her wrench and plasma cutter.

My Pipboy beeped shrilly as a message popped up on the blue luminescent screen.

Are you going to hit me with a bat again?

I could feel my face go red. Even machines were making fun of me now. Great. "No, I'm not going to hit you again." I grinned at the Orb. "Sorry about that." I wonder if it could understand emotions?

The Orb beeped again affirmatively. Good. That wasn't... fun. The letters appeared on my Pipboy's screen.

Sierra ran over to me and wrenched my arm towards her so that she could see the screen. She smiled back up at me and snatched her helmet of the desk and donned it, fingers tapping at its side.

"Eyebot, report code and objective." She said, voice issuing forth from both the helmet and where the rubber neck piece ended.

The Eyebot- Why would it be called that? It didn't look like an eye, and even if it was used for spying, why not call it a Spybot or something?- clicked and beeped some more, and my Pipboy dinged again.

As I said before you... Interrupted, I am Enclave Sandstorm Eyebot number B9-A113. Objective: ERROR. OBJECTIVE NOT FOUND. The Eyebot gave a worried beep, then dejectedly looked towards the ground. How the hell did it have emotions? Better question, how the hell was it showing them without a face!

Sierra pulled off her helmet, then turned to me. "We need to take this back to the Enclave."

I raised an eyebrow. "Uh, okay, why are you telling me this?"

She looked at me like I was an idiot, hands on her hips. If she didn't look so... appealing like that I might have subconsciously started being smarter. Her small hands were smooth and pale beneath her armor, her short hair shone with grease and natural color, her skin was stained with oil from the Eyebot, but somehow was all the more enticing. Her waist was so perfect, her figure was like a slightly ganglier and taller Amber, and her chest was- Okay, back on topic. Seeing that I really didn't have any idea what she meant by it, she explained.

"I'm bringing it along." She said. I kept staring like a cow met with a train. She facepalmed. "I'm asking for permission." Now that caught me off balance.

"Wait, what? Why?" I looked to Amber who just mimicked Sierra's dissapointed look.

"Because you're the leader." Sierra calmley explained. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I took a few steps back. Sometimes it would really pay to be able to pick up on things like this before I looked like a total retard. "Since when?" My gaze switched rapidly between Amber and Sierra. Amber laughed.

Her eyes sparkled with mirth as she giggled like a schoolgirl at my frustration. And not the good schoolgirl giggle! The 'I just punked you and now you're going to have to live with the results of my actions forever' giggle! I'm a teacher, trust me, I know my schoolgirl giggles! "Since forever, oh great and glorious leader." She mock curtsied. GAH!

My head was a pool of confusion and misguided fantasies, and hurt like hell. "I can't be the leader," I said, "I don't make decisions."

By this time Sierra was smiling too. Why the hell had I gotten into an adventuring party with two beautiful sadistic women! "You sure didn't hesitate to run into that room with a robotic monster before us."

"That was, I mean... You two were going up there without knowing what you were up against! I couldn't just let you go in there with something that dangerous!" I stuttered. Somehow I felt I was just digging myself deeper.

Amber whistled in false awe. "Pretty heroic, oh Great and Wonderful Leader." She'd capitalized it this time, I could feel it in my blood. "And don't forget when you charged the Spoon King. Who knows what he'd have done to me if you hadn't been there."

"Spoon King?" Sierra gave a wry inquiring grin to Amber.

Amber's smile just widened. "Just before we met up with you, we found a woman who'd been kidnapped by an insane raider who called himself, 'The Spoon King'. When he saw me, he tried to shoot me, failed, then charged. I could barely react, but before he could take two steps, Grey had gotten past his defenses and struck him down with his Magical Bat of Justice!" She acted it out as she told the story, using the rolled up magazine as a bat, and striking out against an imaginary enemy.

"Hey, wait, that wasn't how it-" My Pipboy beeped again. Under the weapons tab, my bat had been replaced by Justice. "Not you too!" I shouted at my Pipboy. Freaking traitor!

Amber and Sierra broke down in laughter. I couldn't help myself from smiling too. It was good to see them happy, even if it was at my expense. The Eyebot floated over to me and whirred curiously (What does that even mean!) as my Pipboy beeped again.

If you are the leader, why are these two making fun of you? Do they not understand the chain of command? I have an educational slideshow if you wish me to educate them on the subject.

That was when I laughed. I patted the bot on the head and said, "Not necessary Benign." I looked back to the pair, still laughing, seeming only a step from crying from laughter. "It's better this way. Everyone's happy." The Eyebot beeped happily at being called it's old nickname.

And for just a moment, they were all happy, and so was I.

It took the rest of the night to bury the Enclave troops. I collected every single one of their name tags. We decided to spend the night in the camp, and we all took shifts watching guard, but nothing happened. It was peaceful.

The morning was more of the same. Grey dawn sprung from blackest night, starting with a light rain shower, which made the air perfectly miserable for us to continue our march in. We set out early, leaving Hero's Hill behind, walking again towards New Houston. I tried reading my heavy weapons magazine while walking, but I just ended up tripping over a malevolent rock and getting a massive headache. Luckily, my conversations with my companions were much more fruitful than yesterday's.

"So what do you know about New Houston?" I asked Sierra. We passed by more grass. A common theme in the Texan Savanna.

Her gaze rose to the sky, pondering. "Not much, really," She began, "I know that it was pretty advanced before the war, and even around it there's still a ton of valuable tech to be salvaged." Well, we already knew that from Scrappington. Her tone grew dark. "I hear it's haunted though. I told you before, I'm not one to believe in ghosts, but when everybody whose gone within five miles of the City Core has gone missing, you know somethings up."

"Missing?" Amber Chimed in, slowing her pace to fall back from the front of our column.

Sierra shrugged. "I know that generally in the wastes, people die, not go missing, but whenever somebody tells me stories about New Houston it's 'Missing' not dead or lost. I've heard some pretty crazy theories on it too." She chuckled in her armor, voice regulator churning out electronic babble. "The dumbest I've heard involved New Houston being inhabited by Mountain Lion People, who hunt down anyone who enters their domain, then sacrifice them to their gods. The most likely though is that it's full of Taurens, and they pick off anyone who gets too close to their tribes. It's still probably radioactive, so it'd make sense."

Taurens. There was that word again. "What are Taurens?" I asked her.

Her mask turned to me for a second, then she hit her forehead with a metal glove. "Sorry... How do I keep forgetting you're fresh out of a vault? Taurens are... Cow people, I guess." I nearly tripped, then looked back up her, confusion evident on my face. "Well, when the bombs hit, apparently a lot of the herds were far enough away to not be vaped or killed, but close enough to mutate heavily. Some of the Longhorns of old mutated into the Taurens, which are, like I said, Cow people. They stand about seven feet tall, faster than any man or woman, stronger by two. Horns could spear you through like a knife through hot cram, and that's assuming you got anywhere close. Most Taurens are weapons experts. They could pick you off at a thousand yards, and with their freakish strength, I've heard they can use machine guns with one hand, and Anti-materiel rifles without a stock."

Wow. Perfect, another thing to look forward to in the wastes, cows that could waste me at any time from half a mile away.

"They're mostly peaceful though," She continued, "I've never heard of one attacking unprovoked, and I've seen a caravan of merchants with Taurens for guards, as well as Taurens trading with merchants. They live in small tribes, and don't fight except for dominance. I've been told that they fight all their infights with their fists and horns, no weapons allowed." She turned to me and smiled. "Pretty badarse, no?"

"Yeah, I guess," I answered weakly, "Ever done business with them yourself?"

She looked at the ground and tried to scratch her head (Failing miserably because of her helmet.). "No, the Enclave... doesn't look kindly at mutants and Ghouls, or Taurens either. I don't have anything against them personally, but the Enclave teaches that we're the only true humans left, and we need to vaporize the rest. Some of us are bigoted arse wipes who deserve to get a plasma grenade slipped into their pants, and for some reason their in charge." She looked back to me. "Not all of us are like that though." She said softly.

I gave her a small grin. I knew she wasn't like that... I hoped she wasn't like that. No, she couldn't be like that, she was way to nice, and to passionate about the people who weren't. Still, there was a bit of doubt wedged in my mind, which I ignored. She was one of my only friends in the wasteland. She couldn't be like that.

We kept walking, silent except for the occasional cough. A bit after that, I started up a conversation with Benign. "So what's the difference between a Sandstorm Eyebot and a normal one?" Benign clicked and whirred as an answer appeared on my Pipboy.

A standard Eyebot is made of steel and aluminum, equipped with a small standard laser module, and a large array of broadcasting equipment, for relaying data. Huh. So they were spybots. Sandstorm Eyebots are... Different. We are made of Carbon meshing, made to be invulnerable to the hostile weathers of the Texas Territory. We also lack most of the broadcasting equipment that standard Eyebots possess, the space is instead filled with a Regentec Mechanism, and we have a opportunistically ballistic magma cannon.

Yup, that made about no sense. "Tell me about those last two features."

More beeps. A Regentec Mechanism allows for small nanobots to repair me given enough time, and proper resources. Total healing should take only a few hours, given enough scrap metal and spare electronics nearby.

I raised a brow, then began in a hushed tone, "So, when Sierra... Fixed you, was that her, or the nanobots?"

The Eyebot gave an appreciative whistle. Okay, I really have no idea what that means, but not my problem. Given enough, time, I would have been able to repair myself, but without her help, I wouldn't have been able to find some of the more important parts and would have had to fabricate them, which would have taken several weeks if not months.

I nodded. "And the lava cannon thingie?"

Without proper ballistic materials in stock, I will fire a beam that is near the strength of AER9 Laser Rifle, but when proper ballistics are to be found, I launch a near liquid hot projectile at the enemy. This projectile can reach up to 2000 Degrees, hence, Magma Cannon.

Now I whistled appreciatively. That's pretty bad ass, especially for a robot who'd gotten trashed by a vault dweller with a bat. Then I bit my lip. There's no way he'd have... But maybe...

"Hey, Benign, do you have any games?"

Benign let out a few serious beeps then a... Whimsical whistle? Seriously? How? Then a another message appeared on my screen.

Though designed for very serious military operations, my team mates were often... less serious. I have been programmed with basic gaming programs, such as PADDLEBALL, C4 DETECTOR, and 20 QUESTIONS. A few more games are on my hard drive, but without a terminal up-link, they would be impossible to play.

I'm pretty sure my grin could have encompassed the globe twice after I read C4 DETECTOR off of my small blue screen. That's all we'd had at the Vault, and I'd only had part of the code that I'd been able to pull off of the Vault's mainframe. I'd tried to patch it but the results had been way to easy to beat. "Can you transfer C4 DETECTOR to my Pipboy?" I said, already pulling out my transfer cable.

Benign gave an affirmative beep, and I plugged the cable into a protected slot that slid open. Another message popped up on my screen.

They're all very small files, compared to the 82 Terabytes on your Pipboy, would you like to transfer them all?

I nodded, but then said yes when I realized that Benign needed a vocal confirmation. For a robot who could beep and whistle emotions, he sure didn't understand facial expressions. My Pipboy took all of the data in greedily, the transfer taking only a few seconds. I was just about to activate C4 DETECTOR when a message box popped up.

Can we play 20 QUESTIONS?

I was confused for just a second, but then it hit me. This robot had been alone for more than a week, locked in his own mind, and he misses his friends. This wasn't just another computer, and it wasn't a monster like what we'd seen in Scrappington. This was a Sentient being, a living thing in it's own right. Hell, it had a personality I'd seen with my own eye's in it's writing and beeps. And he was my friend. Or at least my companion, if only for now.

I nodded again. I am not a smart person. It took me even longer to realize he was waiting for vocal confirmation this time. "Sure, do you want to go first?"

He beeped happily then began to send messages to my Pipboy, asking what animal he'd thought of.

Two hours of being trashed later, I brought Amber and Sierra in on the game. Turns out when He'd said he'd been 'Programmed' to play this game, he meant he'd had an entire animal encyclopedia dropped into his brain, which he reported had a total of 17,931 species, and every time he saw a new one in the wastes he recorded an entry on it. With the three together, we were finally able to guess his animal (The Gola Malibme) with Amber's random knowledge of obscure birds, and it was her turn to think of an animal. Benign guessed it in three turns. It was 'Cat'. I facepalmed. How could somebody so well versed in pre-war birds choose 'Cat'?

And so the game continued as we walked the long stretch of road between Hero's Hill and New Houston. Only 15 Miles to the 5 mile mark where people started disappearing. Naturally my friends started disappearing well before that.

Three hours later I awoke in a dark room, cold metal shackling my arms to the wall I'd been pinned against. My chains clinked as I tried to bring my Pipboy into my field of vision, but I was forced to wrench my head to the side to check the Chronometer. My head pounded like nothing I'd ever felt before, a sharp pain going through it like a bullet. That thought pulled me to another. Oh right, I thought, I got shot in the head.

"Great. You're awake." A raspy male voice came from opposite me. I heard chains rattle as he gave a racking cough. I slammed my head back as I jumped when I saw two small green lights peering out of the darkness. The voice laughed. "Welcome to Hell, baby."

I tried to turn on my EFS, and did so, however the effort redoubled the pain of my headache to the point where I doubled over in pain (To the best of my shackled abilities.). When I regained control, I looked down to see one green tick mark directly in front of me, where the green lights sat in the darkness, and another sat somewhere off to my right, and red ticks surrounded me. They were all moving rapidly, back and forth over and over again. Radroaches, I guessed. "Where am I?" I asked the lights who'd welcomed me.

There was a raspy snicker. "I told you, hell." Another crackle. I was already starting to hate this thing. "Sorry. I've been in here to long. I think I'm starting to go insane. Or just coming back from already being insane. Anyways, you're in the Maudeville Asylum. They used to keep crazies here before the war, but ever since those damned raiders got their hands on it, they've been using it as a base of operations." I checked my EFS again, a Green tick appeared, then passed directly through me. Multiple floors. An Asylum? Raiders? I tried to think about it, but all I could remember was something small and hard smashing through my head, then the sound of a rifle going off. After that it all turned to black, and pain. I tried to remember more, but I was nearly immobilized by pain. Instead of that I decided to question the voice.

"Don't worry about it. Do you know how I got here?" I asked.

"You got here..." The voice paused thoughtfully,"About, maybe two hours ago? I didn't think you'd wake up, so I didn't really pay attention. The raiders brought you in, said something about a blond and an enclave they'd caught, and they were going too-" Amber and Sierra! Shit!

"Where are they now! I need to get out of here now!" I struggled against my bonds. "I need to save them!" I accidentally hit my head against the wall, jarring pain shooting through my body again. Damn it I was getting tired of that!

"The raiders probably put 'em upstairs with the rest of them girls they get. Least that's what I hear they do with them. Probably taking their time getting to know them if you know what I mean." I didn't. I tried to shake my head to throw off the pain, but it just intensified. I bit down on my collar, trying to ignore the pain, to discover a stimpack I'd hidden there for emergencies. Score! I pulled it out and injected myself, using only my teeth, and suddenly clarity began rushing back to me. Oh he had meant rape. That made sense. Thinking about it, it was actually a pretty clever innuendo and usually I wouldn't have even needed the 'if you know what I mean' thing but- Shit! He meant RAPE!

"Magical talking voice man! I need your help! I need to get out of here and save my friends!" I shouted at the green lights. A metal bar rang out as someone hit it, accompanied by a gruff voice shouting at me to shut the *Ducks* up or else he was going to make me his little *beach*, then footsteps echoed as he walked off. The green lights twinkled in the dark. I got the feeling Magical voice man was smiling.

"I've been in here for far to long," He whispered, "And I think you're right. I was saving this for an opportune moment, but I'm tired of being patent." There was a quiet metallic scrape, and the faintest clink of metal, and suddenly the green lights were right next to my face. "You're a good guy, right?" He said.

"No, I'm no hero." I responded. It was the truth.

"I didn't ask that. Are you a good person?" He reiterated.

I thought about it. For some reason I didn't feel like lying to this guy. I wasn't really a good person. I'd just as soon lie as tell the truth, I would run from a honest fight... but I hadn't. I'd fought monsters, saved people, and kicked ass! I'd killed one of the most badarse monsters in the wastes with a spoon for god's sake! "I'm pretty awesome, yeah." I let out a small laugh. He chuckled with me.

There was a click at my left, then my right as the pressure the cuffs had been applying was lifted. I rubbed my wrists, then looked to my Pipboy. I was relieved to see it wasn't damaged, but then again, the thing could probably take a nuke itself and be perfectly fine. Without notice, the lights blinked out and I was left alone in the dark. There was another click a few moments later, and a heavily muffled scream seconds after that. The voice returned. "You have a light on that thing, right?"

I nodded. It was still pitch black. I am really starting to feel dumb. "Yeah, why?" I asked.

"You can turn it on. The guard won't be causing us any trouble any time soon."

I flicked on my Pipboy light, and was rather surprised by what I saw. First: The cell we'd been sitting in was actually in pretty good repair, despite the smell. Two: Outside in the hall was the body of a raider wearing yellowed goggles, laying in a still growing puddle of his own blood. Third: Standing up at the door of the cage was a man of medium height and a light build, wearing a old but clean suit and fedora, and also a spandex mask with glowing green goggles. Magical voice man was very well dressed. And carrying a bloody combat knife. I rose from where I'd been crouching, and walked over to the door. "Nice to meet you. What's your name?" He asked, reaching out to shake my hand.

"Grey. Doctor Grey. And you?" I grasped his hand and shaking it.

"Bass Dorinshi my good doctor." Once again I got the feeling he was smiling even through his mask.

I walked over to the dead raider and searched his body. "You don't mind, do you?" I asked Dorinshi, who shook his head. I found a Sweet looking trench knife, a poorly repaired and partially jury-rigged chinese pistol, and two Professor Jalapenos. I tossed one to my new friend. I mentally face palmed. I needed to start making friends less easily. Checking my own pockets I found they'd taken everything on me, from Terror and Justice to my last bobbypin. I stood up and looked back to Bass, just in time to catch a glint of my Pipboy's light flicker off a small metal object in the ribbon of his fedora. So that's how he did it.

He started walking towards a metal door, and signaled me to follow. He crouched and tapped to his goggles, then turned to me. "Turn off your light now. It's best we get the drop on guys like this." I nodded then flicked off my light, room falling back into darkness. A crevasse of light appeared as he opened the door and began to sneak out. I dropped down to a crouch and followed him as he snuck through the door, Stabbing his knife into the back of a raider standing outside the hall with all the cells, covering his mouth with a spandex gloved hand. Nice kill. So neat too, very professional, like his clothing. I wonder who he was? A professional killer out here in the wastes? It didn't seem likely, but heck, who knew what happened out here. I was shaken out of my thoughts by a fist passing just by my head, then the force of a raider slamming into me. I threw the raider to the side and drew my knife out to bear, but the raider didn't get back up, and I saw a small stab wound in the back of his neck, spouting blood like a geyser. I need to start paying attention. I turned back to Bass, who'd already started moving down the hall -Looking pretty damned nonchalant for a guy who just stabbed two people to death-, following the signs that said, 'Stairs -' to -Wait for it- a stairwell. I took just long enough to pick a couple of clips off of the newly departed and then ran after him.

We silently ascended the stairs, finding no resistance. On the second floor, we found one raider sleeping, and I watched as Bass slit her throat. Now, I was a bit shocked by this. Killing women wasn't something I'd do, except under the worst of circumstances, let alone while she was sleeping. But then again, she was a raider, made obvious by her clothes and the dismembered arm she was using as a pillow, and I guess it was better to take her out than leave her to terrorize the wastes. It still didn't sit right with me. I searched her body like the rest and had the awesome fortune to be reacquainted with my pistol, Terror, as well as twelve stimpacks, also probably mine. She only had a few clips of ammo though. Still, I scrounged it all and followed Bass as he searched the rest of the floor. As we walked through a doorway, a shot rang out on the floor above, and we froze. Seconds passed. Minutes. No second shot. Shit. I turned to Bass who calmly continued searching the room. I could only hope that that was friendly fire and not one of my friends being shot. I had to hurry. Just as we were leaving the floor, we heard a sob, a quick, half suffocated thing, from a cupboard just adjacent to the dead raider. I held my knife in front of me as I opened the cupboard, rusted hinges letting out a small squeak as it resisted, but complied.

Inside was a kid, maybe fifteen or sixteen, covered in both chains and injuries, a gag in his mouth and tears streaming down his face. It only took a moment for my knife to slash through his gag, and barely longer to use the spiked guard to break through the rusted chains. He whispered a quick thank you, more whimper than words, then ran through the door to the stairs, no footsteps echoed to reveal his presence. I never heard any shots, so I assumed he got out all right. Me and Bass sped up the steps, this time Bass was following me as I charged up the steps, slowing down only enough so that I didn't make any noise. As I opened the door to the third and final floor (at least there were no more stairs leading upwards) and found a raider, pointing a sub machinegun at the head of a captive, cooing horrible words with a voice sweeter than it had a right to be. The door scrapped as I opened it, a small sound, but enough for her to turn to the door and see my eye peaking through. She spun towards us, ignoring the moaning wastelander, bringing her gun to bear at the door. Or at least she would have. As soon as we made eye contact, I burst through the door, spinning my knife around in my hand so that the blade pointed towards the ground and bringing it against her neck, crimson splattering the floor, my knife, and me, as I caught her body with my other hand, slowly lowering it to the floor. She hadn't even had any time to shout out, and her death had been entirely silent. Man, maybe I was cut out for the assassin business too.

When the captive looked up again, his eyes brightened as they fell across the corpse of his tormentor. He began to say a prayer to... whatever god this wasteland believed in, but I brought a finger to my lips and he got the meaning. I cut the ropes that bound his wrists, but instead of running off like the other captive we found, he picked up the gun of his captor and checked the mag. He nodded to me and I nodded back. He wanted to help! Kickarse! He pointed to the door at the end of the room, decorated with a human skull and entrails, and whispered to us. "Those are your friends in their right? They were shouting about you as they dragged them in there. Assuming your their moron friend with the funky hairdo, which, judging by your doo, I'd say that's you. I'm no hero, but I'll be damned if I'll let women die if I can help it." Finally, another chivalrous soul like me in the wastes... and did they really think my hair was stupid? Bah! pushing it out of my mind, we've got people to save! I nodded to him again. We surrounded the door, and I tried the door. It was unlocked, but I felt the need for a surprise. I'd be willing to bet that these were the last few in the building, so might as well use all the surprise we had left. I was crouched just to the right of the door, ready to kick it in, when it swung out suddenly and a raider stuck his head out.

"Hey Nalla! You want a piece of... What in th-" He cut off as I kicked the door, slamming it right into his raider face. I looked to Bass, then to the wastelander, both of which looked back to me, not knowing how to react. Suddenly, the door swung open again and another raider walked out.

"Nalla, did you just kick the door in, and..." A Bass's World War I combat knife slammed into his heart. "that's not a... good... thing..." He fell to the ground and the three of us dashed through the door. There were four raiders in the room over all, one on the ground, bleeding at the nose from where the door had crushed it, two more were looking at the door from where they were... enjoying, a pair of corpses, and the last was whipping out his junk and approaching a pantless Sierra, who was tied up just next to Amber. Every face in the room turned towards me.

"I present you, your doom!" I said as I stepped out of the doorway into the room, leaving the way open for Submachinegun Wastelander. So hip. I don't know why I ever said anything, let alone that. Even just a second after I said it all I hoped was that Amber and Sierra were too out of it to have heard what I said. Meanwhile mister Wastelander opened fire on the two who were getting it on with colder counterparts. Another second went by and they were more full of holes than the cold ones they'd been enjoying. I put on a burst of speed and ran at the raider who was planning on dancing the non-consensual mammalian tango with Sierra, and opened his abdomen with a slash from my trench knife, then pulled Terror from its holster and opened fire on the raider with a broken nose. In two seconds, every red tick on my Pipboy had vanished, and we'd saved my friends. Bass's goggles just stared at me.

"Did you really just say that?" He said, still standing at the doorway.

I'm pretty sure I blushed, which is just as embarrassing as what I'd said. "Let's never speak of it again." I mumbled as I started toward Amber and Sierra.

Another slash from my knife (Man, I really loved this sweet knife) and their wrists were unbound. One more and their ankles were free too. Amber Immediately scrambled to her feet and hugged me, thanking me and even giving me a small kiss on the cheek! Score. Meanwhile Sierra stayed motionless. Oh god, I thought, please don't let them have gotten to her! I put a hand on her shoulder, and whispered her name, only too have her slap my hand away. I glimpsed her face. It was cherry red. "TURN AROUND AND TELL AMBER TO GET ME SOME PANTS!" She shouted. Oh. OH. I spun around, my own face going red again. Amber just giggled as she grabbed Sierras pants off the floor and left my field of vision. I could hear Bass's raspy laughter back near the doorway. Freaking Bass. Freaking Amber. Freaking Raiders. Freaking Texas.

Freaking Awkwardness.

Footnote: Level 3 Reached. Melee Weapons 45. Guns 45. New Perk; Swift learner- gain an additional ten percent experience wherever experience is earned.

Quest Perk; Semi-Mysterious stranger- People tend to share your goals, and as such, your enemies. Humanoid Friendlies are much more likely to help you out in a battle than before. 


	5. Chapter 45

A few minutes later, after some awkward sounding shuffling and more giggling from Amber, Sierra said I could turn around again. I turned and opened my mouth to apologize, but was interrupted when Sierra slammed into me, burying her head into my chest, wrapping her arms around me. My head went down in confusion to look at her, and met her head rising up to meet me. I wish I could say that it was romantic and we locked eyes as our faces leveled to each other. I can't. Her head slammed into my chin and I fell to the ground and with her arms still locked around me, she came with me. A I slammed into the ground and she fell on top of me, and we just laid there for a second, this time our eye's successfully met and maintained contact.

That part was romantic. Or awkward. Both, really.

She clambered off of me and got to her feet, brushing off her newly donned sweat pants even though I was the only one who'd hit the floor. I rose more slowly, rubbing my chin. I don't care how cute or awkward anybody would ever say that moment was, it hurt like a beach. She murmured an apology then continued to blush profusely. She was being... Shy? What the heck! This is coming from the same girl who'd calmly pointed a laser at my head while I tossed my only weapon to the- My train of thought was interrupted by a warm, wet, feeling on my lips. I really wish I'd been paying attention, because that one hit me like another blow to the head, and I was surprised I didn't fall to the ground again.

She smiled at me shyly -Once again, what the heck!- and continued to blush. If she stayed red for much longer she was going to turn into an apple. "Thank you." She said softly, blue stained glass eyes glimmering as they met mine. Then she ran across to a corner of the room where her armor lay, carefully stepping over the bodies of the Necrophillicly inclined raiders and their expired dates.

I just stood there for a second -Looking like an idiot, I'm sure- then started to loot bodies along with Bass, who was picking at the raider with a crushed nose who was doing a pretty darn good impersonation of Swiss cheese. When I looked up, Amber grinned smugly at me, like she'd known all along. Heck, I'd only known Sierra two days! How could she have known! Things moved way to fast in this freaking raider's wonderland. "So, who're your new friends?" She asked, looking over to Bass, who stopped and looked up, then went back to looting.

"Right." I said, thinking once more that I'd been making way to many friends recently, at least for a guy who'd never been good at making friends before. "He's Bass Dorinshi, Super-duper assassin dude. He dresses sharp and keeps his knife sharper. Also, he has some kickarse goggles." I looked at his goggles again. I bet they did nothing, but still, I wanted some. I never get the good armor. Bass rose from the body he was searching and looked at me.

"Where did you get that? That was actually pretty cool sounding." He said to me.

I shrugged. "My way with words comes and goes, never staying for long. I'll take being charismatic with a crowbar over a silver tongue any day."

Amber and Bass stared at me. "That was pretty awesome too. Are you some sort of secret poet?" Amber giggled.

"Not last time I checked. I'm more of a st... Okay, I was going somewhere with that, but my brain got lost along the way." I scratched my head. Can't win 'em all.

Amber smiled at me again. "And your other friend?"

I looked at the Submachinegun wielding badarse wastelander still standing just inside of the doorway. "Uh, I don't know. Who are you Mister Submachinegun wielding badarse?"

He let out a short laugh. He was a pretty muscular looking guy. Small chin, long neck, but the rest of him was built like an ox. He had so much muscle on his arms; I don't think he could have fit into any real armor. He wasn't the type of guy I would have thought would have been crying at the mercy of a raider just a few minutes ago. "I think I'll stick with that."

"With what?" I asked.

"-wielding-badarse. It has a nice ring to it." He replied, speaking calmly in a rich deep voice. I shrugged. If he wanted to take the names other people gave him let him go right ahead. I looked around the room, and nearly shouted in delight when I saw my bat sticking up from behind a pile of bodies in the corner of the room. Score! I'd bet the rest of my stuff would be with it too. I'd only found six of my remaining Stimpacks on the raiders, (And I gave four of them to Bass, and the other two to Amber) and was looking forwards to finding the rest of my stash. I began to walk towards the bat, only to realize something was off about it. I stopped and starred at it for a moment before realizing what. It was shaking. Not violently, or quickly, but erratically and in bursts. I glanced down to my EFS, where a green tick mark quivered.

I drew my pistol and began moving towards it again, slowly. Even if the mark was green, it was better safe than sorry. A piece of glass snapped under my boot, and the thing with my bat let out a small squeal, then sobbed quietly. I rounded the wall of bodies to find a raider, no more than twenty, clutching my bat and crying. I lowered Terror and slid it into my holster. I don't care if she was a raider or not, I wasn't going to shoot a girl. Bass came over holding his knife, and began to advance on the girl but I extended my arm out in front of him.

"Not this one." I said harshly.

He shrugged and moved off, returning his attention to a few boxes of ammunition that lay unopened near the table Amber and Sierra had been tied to. Amber looked at me inquisitively.

"'Green keep it clean', right? I'm not going to make the same mistake twice." At least when it really mattered. Otherwise I made the same mistakes all the time. I walked over to the girl and put a hand on her shoulder. Are you alright?" I asked.

She cowered, trying to retreat further into the corner, hanging my bat like a life preserver. I kneeled down, and tried comforting her. "I'm not going to hurt you. Please, just tell me, are you all right?" She let out a muffled sob. "I'm sorry about your... friends. They were bad people. But you don't seem like one of them. Please, let me help you." Her face rose from her arms, turning to me. Her eye's were dark brown, and her hair was old world grass green.

"Please... Don't hurt me..." She let out between tears, large eyes staring up at me.

"Don't worry. You're safe." I put my hand on her wrist, and held it in what I hoped was a comforting manner. I never thought anybody would say that to me. In three day's I'd gone from tactless historian to Angel of death. I shrugged mentally. Nothing I could do about it. If I was going to have a mental breakdown, this wasn't the time or place for it. Slowly, I pulled her to her feet, steadying her as I walked her over to a window. I tried to make sure she didn't see the bodies of her friends. With all of the pieces everywhere, I'm pretty sure I failed, but she her sobbing was slowing. I sat her down in a slightly less blood splattered chair by the window. Sierra walked over, now fully armored but for her helmet which she cradled in one arm.

"You're sure about this?" She said to me, face plain. "She's a raider. I'd bet she's done as bad of stuff as the rest of these duckweeds*."

I nodded. I don't care if she'd killed a million people. I'm no executioner. Sierra smiled. "That was a test. You passed." She turned and walked away with a smug look on her face. A test? She'd- But- I... Wow. Five minutes into a possible relationship and she's already testing me. Bah. Freaking Wastelanders. I shook my head, trying to through off the thoughts.

"I could take her." A voice spoke. Mr. Submachinegun-wielding-badarse had finally chosen to say something on the matter. "I won't kill her. I'll make sure she gets to Enxing, then let the court they have there deal with her. I doubt they'd kill her if she turned herself in. Heck, they'll probably make her promise never to raid again, give her a slap on the wrist, and get her a job on one of the plantations. It's hard work, but It'd be for the best. I think." He looked to me. Why were people always looking to me! Being the leader sucked.

I crouched down to eye level with the maybe-was-a-raider-once-but-seems-to-regret-it girl and asked her what she thought. "You can go with him, get some jail time, and maybe get some honest work, or you can come with us, on our whacky adventure across the wastes. What do you think?" I saw a thin smile cross her face at 'wacky adventure'. Maybe she wasn't as far gone as I'd thought. She lifted her head and looked us all over, then turned to face Mr. Submachinegun-wielding-badarse.

"I think... I'd rather go with him... If that's alright." I grinned. If I had a choice whether to go with a strong looking man with a machinegun and the skill to use it, or a scruffy bunch of friends including a Enclave member, a woman in full Combat gear, a Mystery Assassin with a suit, and a moron leader from a vault, I'd probably go with machinegun guy too.

"That's perfectly fine with everyone, I think." I smiled at the rest of my crew, who all nodded and smiled back. Except for Bass and Benign. Bass just... well... I have no idea what he was doing behind his mask, and Benign was... Ducks. I spun to face Sierra, my expression quickly going from one of joy to one of concern. "Sierra, what happened to Benign?"

She and Amber froze. Amber was the first to break the momentary silence. "He vanished when a bullet hit you in the head and knocked you out. I have no clue where he went."

"Benign?" Bass rasped inquisitively.

"Our super awesome robotic friend. He must have run off when the shooting started." I answered. "He wasn't able to handle any fighting the last time something broke out near him, so he might not have been able to this time either."

I gestured to the ex-raider for my bat back, which she gave up a little begrudgingly. It was a pretty awesome bat, but still, she could get her own. My bat. I picked up a few more magazines of ammo for Terror and a couple for a weapon I couldn't recognize. I slid a clip into my silver grey pistol. "We've got to get out there and find him."

Sierra plopped her helmet on and clicked a button on the side, then hoisted her laser rifle onto her back. "I was just about to suggest the same thing. He's important to the Enclave." And our friend, I added mentally. Amber walked back over to the two of us carrying all of our bags, which had been mostly emptied. I refilled mine quickly, dumping my liberated Stimpacks in with the others in the bag, then slipping it onto my back. I holstered my pistol and attached the sheath the knife had come with onto my belt and sheathed it. I slipped my bat back into its sling on my back. It felt good to have my stuff back. By time I was done everyone else was too, and I gave a nod to the Submachinegun-wielding-badarse as I stepped out of the doorway, heading towards the stairwell. I trusted him to get the ex-raider to...Enxing? My Pipboy bleeped to let me know a new marker had been added to the map. My group followed solemnly, except for Bass. I turned to him.

"Aren't you coming?" I asked.

He looked puzzled, even with his feature concealing mask on. "You want me to come?"

I nodded. He shrugged. We were men of few words. Or brains. We all started down the stairs together. Halfway down, my Pipboy beeped again. There, under the 'Quest' tab, was a new message.

Find Benign.

Well, that was helpful. Then I caught movement on my EFS, and realized just how helpful the quest menu was. There, nestled among the letters that marked it as a compass, was a green arrow, right between north and west. Normally, I would have stopped to question how it knew that, how it had added a quest, or how it knew where we had to go, but now was not a normal time. We had to find Benign. It was Benign findin' time.

Normally I might have tried to sneak up on two raiders who were armed to the teeth, one with a Chinese pistol, and the other brandishing a forty pound Minigun. Once again, it wasn't a normal time. Before any sort of plan could start to form in my mind, I ripped out of the Asylum's doorway and slammed my bat into the head of Minigun raider, then spun on my heels and drove the butt of my bat into the other's windpipe. He fell to the ground, clutching his neck, trying to breathe through his destroyed throat. Sucks to be him. I only paused long enough to rip Minigun raider's namesake from him along with its backpack of ammunition. Thirty seconds after dashing out the door, I was on my way northwest, my party following behind, seeming kind of shocked at what I'd done. I grinned at that. Amber and Sierra'd been so insistent on making me the leader; I might as well darn start acting like one. Bass paused to loot pistol raider's corpse, but was back with us before I got more than a hundred feet from the Asylum.

And so we headed northwest. I ignored the roads and walkways along the plain, instead heading straight through the rough short grass that covered it. The grass here was different; more short and brown (I say short, but it was still at least knee height on me), while the other had been greenish and long. How far had those raiders dragged us? I sidestepped to the right and left as I looked at my EFS. The marker didn't move in the slightest, so I figured we were still a way off.

"How far did those raiders bring us?" I asked to no one in particular, letting my words fall to whoever chose to pick them up.

"Not far. It was actually only half a mile or so. If you look back west, you'll see where we were when you took a bullet to the head. By the way, how did you live through that?" Sierra sped her pace so that she was walking beside me as she spoke.

"I guess my funny hair makes for a pretty good shield." I said, turning around to see what she was talking about. To my surprise, about a mile or two away, I could see a visible shift in colors. Weird. And that bullet thing was troubling me too. I'd taken a stimpack, and the pain had gone away, but how much damage was there really? I rubbed my hand along the back of my head, finding only a small bump where I'd presumably been shot. I looked at my Pipboy, but it read my vitals as normal. Double weird. Bah. I needed to stop thinking. The more I thought the more I tried to stop thinking. Was that a paradox? Was it possible to fight thinking? If I just went with the flow instead of fighting it would I stop thinking? I was interrupted from my newfound philosophical thoughts by my old nemesis. A rock.

I slammed face first down onto the cracked and dirt covered pavement of an old world road. I let out a curse as I rose off the ground. I my mouth tasted of copper and when I put my hand to my nose it came back a dazzling new shade of red. Perfect. I could take a bullet to the back of the head, but got a bloody nose from my arch rival the rock. Sierra frowned at my face's imitation of raw Radroach meat and pulled a cloth from her armor and began to dab at my face. The cloth smelled like her. Which was nice. It also smelled like rubbing alcohol. Which sucked corn.

"Well, at least we know you're still human." She said as she wiped the last bit of blood off of my chin. "Did it hurt when you woke up?"

"Did what hurt?" I said.

"The bullet wound." She replied, very patently, like a good teacher teaching a student that one plus one equals two (I say good teacher because I was a teacher and I wasn't patient in any way shape or form.). I've said it before; I am not a very smart person.

"Right. Yeah it hurt." I said, recalling the splitting head-ache I'd woken up with.

"So when did it stop hurting?"

I shrugged. "Well, I took a Stimpack and then I wen-"

"You what?" She shouted at me, staring into my eyes with a sense of urgency I hadn't seen since... well, ever really.

"Well, they missed one of my Stimpacks, so I took it out and injected it." Judging by her expression and the fact that she facepalmed, I guessed that that was a bad thing.

She let out a groan. "Those things are intended for front line soldiers! They weren't intended for any use except to keep soldiers fighting for just a bit longer. They were like pouring a bit of sand into a hourglass that was about to run out." She pulled off her helmet and set it on the ground, then rummaged around in her pockets for a small silver grey case. "I don't care if that robot is in danger, I need to make sure you aren't about to die. Lie down."

"But, we need to-"

"Lie down." She cut me off with a much more forceful voice. I got down. I closed my eyes as she brought out a rather evil looking scalpel. She turned my head so I was facing away from her, and a moment later pain erupted from the base of my skull. I probably would have shot up off the ground if I had been able to move at all, but fortunately for me I wasn't and so I just laid there as Sierra proceeded to pull small lumps of lead out of my brain for the next half hour. I'm not sure which I was more unhappy about, the fact that it took me than two hours to get back up on my feet and chasing after Benign, or that she pulled what seemed like enough lead to make not just a bullet, but the gun that fired it out of the back of my head. What gun had they been using to fire something like that?

While I was still reeling with the pain of the impromptu surgery Sierra grabbed my chin and pulled my face to look at her's. "Promise me you'll never use Stimpacks again, unless your life is in danger."

I fought through the pain, trying to stay conscious. "I promise." Jeez, she said it like I was a druggy. But in all honesty, having a sharp instrument jabbed into the back of my head wasn't all that great of an incentive to use them again, so I promised myself I wouldn't use them again as much as I promised her.

And so, two hours later, and a few ounces of lead less, we were on the road again. My headache had returned, but not nearly as bad as before. More of a subtle nagging. And so I pushed on. We passed by a graveyard of rusted and bent pieces of sheet metal, full of wooden chips and shattered plastic. I only recognized it for a old world playground when I nearly tripped again over a stuffed bear. It was a wonder how the thing hadn't rotted away or been torn up, especially in the Texan humidity. I slipped it away into my backpack without a second thought, and kept walking. Another hour passed and we were walking through a field of waist high grass again. I was beginning to get sick of how often I discovered things with my feet when I stumbled over a foot high concrete sewer entrance missing its manhole. I shouted back to my companions that there was a hole there before tossing a rock down into it to check how deep it was. The hole hissed at me. My Pipboy pinged as it designated the location 'Mishakes Haunt' and pointed it out on my map while I was busying myself with getting the hell out of there. Freaking Texas.

After that the trek was pretty uneventful. At one point we were threatened by a group of 'raiders', none of which could have been more than twelve, but they were discouraged after I hefted my minigun onto my shoulder and whistled at their bravado. They shouted something along the lines of 'Falcon Fighters' Tactical retreat!' and dashed back into the ruins of what must have been a post-war created fort, but had been abandoned after... something. Aside from that, I kicked a tire, but that was about as interesting as it got.

Just as the sun was beginning to go down, we were climbing up a rare hill when we got close enough to Benign to see a visible difference on my EFS. As I shifted to the left and right, I assuming I took about a yard of a step with each... then according to my calculation's he was only fifty yards away! I turned to my friends to signal that we were close and to stay quiet, and then returned to climbing the hill. I reached the peak and drew my pistol, peering just over the crest of what was now apparent to be a crater, not a hill. As if on cue my Pipboy began to click ominously, but I wasn't receiving enough radiation to affect me unless I decided to take a four day nap. I looked in the direction of the marker and saw a small shack about a hundred yards away still, even though I'd climbed thirty feet since my initial calculations. I'm a Historian, not a Mathematician dang it!

Seeing no immediate danger in the vicinity, I hopped over the crest and started sneaking towards the shack. Before I'd gone a single step, A hand snatched my collar and dragged me back over the crest.

"Plans first kid." Bass' rough voice said. Right. Planning. My anger'd worn off a bit during the trek, at least enough so that even I didn't much feel like running into a possible ambush without a plan.

"Uh," I started, "How about we go over to that shed, knock on the door, and see if they have Benign in there?"

Amber and Sierra's faces were both covered by helmets, but I imagine they frowned. "How about we all sneak up, fully armed but not holding our guns in a threatening way, and you use your EFSs to check if there are any hostiles in it?" Sierra suggested.

I sighed. "And why aren't you the leader again?"

"Because I didn't kill an eight foot tall demonic monster by ramming a spoon through its head." I could practically feel her wry grin behind her helmet.

I sighed again. "Let's just go get Benign." I raised my pistol and jumped over the crest of the hill.

_  
>Notes: Sorry about this short, shitty chapter, uh... Stuff happened. I was fighting crime for the last to weeks. Kaibomb out. <p>


	6. Chapter 5

"Well that was fun." I said, my voice muffled by a oatmeal and mutfruit cookie. Benign beeped an happy affirmative, floating besides me as we walked the lonely road towards New Houston, looking shinier than ever before and wearing a small ribbon tied to one of his antennae.

"Fun! I was worried sick!" Sierra shouted through her vocal modulator. "Here we all thought you were dead or being tortured or something, but twenty minutes later you come out with a bag of snacks!"

"I shared, didn't I?"

"That's not the issue here!" She fumed beneath her helmet.

Everybody was still a bit angry with me for what had happened back there I guess. Not that it was my fault, well... Okay, it was pretty much entirely my fault. After I'd hopped the ridge of the hill and snuck down to the shack were the Quest marker was stuck, I'd gone inside alone to check out the situation after I saw that there were no hostile markers, and was kind of surprised to find Benign being polished by an old lady. She was exactly what you might expect from an old lady living in the wastes, nice, caring, and battier than most orphans in comic books. She'd told me to sit down and relaxed and brought out a tray of cookies, and while I was skeptical at first, I eventually gave in at Benign's constant messaging that she was nice and the cookies were (Statistically) safe. She yapped on and on about how nice life was in good ol' Texas, and how much better and warmer it was than where she'd been raised, but I don't think she much understood that the United states had been under nuclear assault nearly two hundred years ago. All the same, I left the shack I'd entered with a drawn pistol left with a small sack of more oatmeal mutfruit cookies and a rather shiny Benign, only to run into my companions who were getting ready to storm the small shack. And so we'd set off into the night together again.

At first I'd been a bit concerned about walking around at night, but the moon was pretty bright, and Sierra'd said that there were pretty much as many monsters out at night as in the day, but we'd still be safer walking than trying to set up camp in a location we weren't sure about. Bass's contribution to the conversation had been to point out that the only real difference between night and day on the Texan plains was that you were decently less likely to be seen and therefore shot at during the night.

"Just promise me you won't do it again?" Sierra asked, her tone dropping from angry to pleading. How could I say no to that! She was like a puppy wearing fifty pound metal body armor.

"Okay. I'll never go into random people's houses alone again." I promised.

Amber munched on a cookie besides us. "I don't know, these cookies are pretty awesome. I think you should nearly shoot up old people a lot more often." I smiled.

"I'll keep that in mind." I said. I offered Bass a cookie, but he turned it down, saying it reminded him of old times. I still snuck one into his satchel. Maybe he'd find it when he did want to remember old times. Or maybe he'd have a psychological breakdown. Oh well. I stowed the rest of the cookies for later. As we walked I tried to read my Heavy weapons magazines again (recovered by Amber from one of the cold body inclined raiders) but put it back in my backpack after realizing that even if I did have a light strapped to my arm, I couldn't read and walk at the same time. Sierra tried to strike up a conversation with Bass, but He ignored her and sped up to get away from her. I barely withheld my laughter at the thought that I wasn't the only one that sucked at making small talk. Bored as I was, I started running my hands over my own newly acquired minigun. It was a hell of a machine. It was in poor condition, but with a few replacement parts, I bet I could get its revolution speed faster and the bullet chain moving more efficiently than ever before. I imagined raining hot lead based death over the wasteland at a speed of fifty bullets a second. It took me a moment to realize I was salivating at the thought and put my minigun back onto it's harness on my new Ammuntions backpack. I felt good. Regardless of recently being operated on, being shot in the back of the head, and marching several miles, I felt pretty darn good. I'd got Benign back, I'd gotten cookies, and... well, that was all, but after being attacked and kidnapped by psychopathic murderous freaks, It was plenty to be happy about. Things were starting to go my way.

A gunshot tore its way through the peaceful night.

Go my way-ish. My party jumped down into one of the roadside ditches and layed still. I checked my EFS and was surprised to find two friendlies off to the north, both slowly moving to the left and right, but no red marks marred my vision which meant... they were fighting each other?

"They aren't enemies, but I still don't want to get close until-" A burst of high caliber pistol fire rang out. "-they stop fighting." I looked to my friends and they all nodded. Well, not Benign, but he bobbed up and down, which I took for a silent affirmative. We waited a few minutes, and heard a few more shots, and when I checked my EFS again, one of the green ticks was gone and the other was still. I pulled my bat from its makeshift sheath and began to walk towards the ex-combatant.

The scene was a bit different from what I'd come to expect from the wasteland so far. The pair had been standing inside of a large circle of flattened grass, one at one end, and the other opposite him. Both of the combatants had been armed with an enormous pistol and a wickedly curved machete, and both had long, thick cloths tied about their waists that bore some strange pictogram looking runes. These two had met together on an honorable field of combat and duked it out with the tools of men. Which was weird, because one of them was a cow.

Dead on the ground, there was a Tauren, and Sierra's description couldn't have prepared me for what I saw. He must have been seven and a half feet tall (I say 'he' because I couldn't see any udders, but heck, maybe he was a chick. I'm a historian not a veterinarian!), and looked like he could toss a car for fun. He had horns that were at least two feet long each, twisting up into cruel tips that were stained in blood. He had two holes in his chest, and one in his head, and his right arm had been slashed nearly in half. Which brings me to his opponent. Now, Sierra wasn't all that tall, but with her power armor on, she was nearly my height; that was almost an additional six inches, and the man slouched against the body of his fallen foe must have been seven feet tall when decked out in Advanced Power armor, that looked like it was full to the point of bursting. His dark black Armor was striped with paint of all colors, marking his metal sleeves with a variable rainbow. His abdomen had been run through by a horn or two and was bleeding out like no human could have ever been made to withstand. In his hand, he still gripped his oversized pistol, but his other was laying more than a comfortable distance from him, over the body of his foe. Still gripping the Machete though, to his credit.

Suddenly Sierra's hand rose to her helmet and made a series of quick tapping movements where her ear would have been, then she dashed towards the fallen soldier.

"General Stonewall!" She cried, voice barely toned down by her voice modulator. She fell to her knees at his side and took of her helmet, then reached her hands up to remove his. As the helmet rose off his face, I saw what might have been the most manly face ever. His chin looked like it had been chiseled from marble, and his brow was thick and heavy. His head was bald, but on his face sat the most manly mustache in the history of facial hair, matted with blood. He turned to Sierra, and spoke. While he wasn't loud enough for me to hear what he was actually saying, just from the tone of his voice I could tell that he was... happy. Like this was how he wanted to go. Sierra sniffled and wiped away a tear with a gloved hand. Then his tone got serious. He strained himself enough so that he was speaking loud enough for all of us to hear, and even though that was still quiet, his words carried a certain pressure.

"Enclave's not doing well. Dallas Outpost got raided and wiped out by a Brotherhood initiate. Heard just that one guy took out near an damned entire platoon." He laughed, a strong hearty thing, even though I could see the scarlet of blood leave his mouth as he did so. "I left to find Redheart last month, just before the attack on Dallas. I'm getting old and I wanted to just get it over with. Such a nice kid. Good fighter too." He patted the Tauren he lay against as he said Redheart, like he was talking about an old friend. "Your brother's a right mess, though. Might want to talk to him about that. Nice seeing you again, Schmoopiekins. Don't get wasted." And with that, he drifted off into deaths arms, quietly, and peacefully, if with a gaping hole in his stomach. The green tick disappeared from my EFS.

We all stood there a moment as Sierra blotted another tear and closed the General's eyes, then put his helmet back on. More time passed as Sierra sat there, just trying to stop crying for a few moments. I crouched besides her and patted her on the back, and she let out a few more quick sobs, then rose up onto her feet.

Bass was the first one to start asking questions. "Uh, so, who was that?" For a second, I thought Sierra was going to burst out into a fresh round of tears, but she just let out a quick, pained laugh.

"That, was Brigadier General Edwin D. Stonewall, the finest man to ever serve in the Enclave military, and also, my uncle." Whoa. That was pretty intense. Was I supposed to introduce myself to him? Should I still do it, to his dead body? How was I supposed to say that I was dating his niece? Where we actually dating? Were there even any existing consensual relationships in the wasteland? Who was going to answer any of these questions? Sierra continued. "He was like a father to me, ever since mine died during the Trojeck Hall explosion, practically raised me and my brother himself." She didn't have a father? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Bah! Wasteland dating sucks.

Amber asked the second question. "So why was he out here dueling with a cow?"

Sierra let out another quick laugh, which sounded a little less forced. "Along with being the most stubborn man in the Enclave, he was the most honorable." She smiled, looking down at her recently departed uncle's visor. "The Enclave don't really play nice with any of the other mutants that have risen up since the war, including the Taurens, so when permission to wipe out a Tauren village came through the line of command back when he was a Chief Warrent Officer, his superiors passed it without hesitation. His personal squadron of elites was forced to destroy the village, or be disbanded while He was off on leave. They took the only route they had open to them, since they were a family and knew they'd be pushed appart if they disobeyed, and murdered hundreds of Taurens in cold blood. When my Uncle returned from leave, he couldn't withhold his fury, and nearly quit his position, and did beat one of the Colonels who'd forced his squad to commit such atrocities half to death. After this, he went to the site of the water plant they were building on the new Tauren graveyard, and waited. He was beyond grief and was going to just sit there and wait to die, but something else happened first. A young Tauren bull by the name of Redheart came back from his trial of manhood, and challenged my uncle to a duel of honor, to avenge his people. My uncle accepted his offer, and they went out to the field of combat, and began to fight. At first, he was just planning on letting the Tauren kill him to repent for his sins, but as he told it, as they fought, his spirit rekindled, and he kept fighting. For two days they fought, at least as he told it, with knives and spears, fighting all across the destroyed village. Eventually, my uncle bested the Redheart, but spared his life. Redheart was furious about this, and swore revenge for this dishonor, and left the site. That was nearly forty years ago, and ever since, wherever the two crossed paths, they have battled and fought, always ending in a tie. Until now, I guess." Her gaze rose to the brown Tauren. Muscles were taut beneath his skin even in death. To have been fighting something like this for forty years... Stonewall must have been a man to match his mustache.

I looked around the field of combat again. The grass had that had been pressed down was beginning to rise again, moonlight falling on it gently, making it seem almost silver rather than the green brown it actually was. "Should we bury them?" I asked.

Sierra nodded.

"I guess we could go back to Gramms and see if we could borrow a shovel or two." She shook her head.

"Somehow, I think they both knew this would be their last battle. Look around for their gear, I bet they already brought some." Sure enough, at the edge of the circle, two rucksacks were balanced up against each other, one of steel and one of hide. I went through both gently, and sure enough found two shovels, one of bone and the other looked to be made of some sort of metal. I also found another trademark Vaultboy Keychain. This one felt... heavier than the other. Somehow it felt like it meant more. The Vault boy grinned at me playfully, wearing a sweatband around its forehead and wearing a Vault-tec brand running suit. The inscription read:

-Slow and steady wins the race, and it doesn't hurt if you can take a few bullets too!-

Somehow I didn't feel bad about attaching it to my Pipboy where it dangled along with the other. He didn't need it anymore. Now I was the one who was going to have to bear hardship.

Uh oh. I don't like those kinds of thoughts. I pushed it out of my mind as I jogged back to Sierra and handed Bass a shovel. He looked at it like he wasn't going to do it for a few seconds, but shrugged and began digging. The soil was soft, and it only took the better part of an hour to dig a grave for each of them. As we worked, a gray wave rolled over the black blue of the night sky, blotting out the stars. The graves were easy, getting two giants into them was hard. Luckily, Benign's Self Propulsion Engine was stronger than I'd ever have thought to have credited it, and with our ribbon adorned robotic pals help, we were able to move both of them and their slightly disassembled parts to their own separate, if shallow, graves. I asked Sierra if she'd like me to say a few words, not that a history teacher was the most qualified to do as such, but she shook her head and let another silent tear roll down her already moist cheek. We piled dirt back onto the battle torn bodies and placed mementos at the head of each grave. Stonewall's grave got a slab of his black armor, wrapped with his dog tag, and engraved with a few words from his niece while Redheart's got a large rock with a strange dagger we'd found in his pack stabbed into it. It had cut through the stone like it was warm cram, which freaked me out, but I didn't mention it.

Sierra then turned to me with a fierce determination burning in her eyes. "We have to go to Lions Ridge."

I shrugged. Again. It was starting to become a default action. "Where's that?"

A droplet of rain exploded against her armor. It was followed by another, and another until an entire slippery army was bearing down on us. "It's were my brother is. We have to go." She stomped her boot into what was quickly becoming a miniature swamp to emphasize. At least she was thinking in 'we's. It made it a lot easier for me. Some leader.

"You're kidding, right?" Bass rasped. "You want us to waltz into the second most secure Enclave outpost in the Texan Province, and do what? Tell you're brother about his uncle's death?" Why does everybody seem to hate the Enclave? Every member I'd met so far had either been beautiful and attracted to me or courageous and strong enough to take on a Tauren. Sure I'd only seen two, but that had to count for something! Well... Okay, maybe it didn't count for much.

Sierra's boots squelched in the soon-to-be-but-not-really-yet-mud as she turned to Bass and said what I'd been thinking, with the exception of Sierra's physical appearance and attraction to me.

He took off his hat as he rubbed his head in mock confliction. "How do I say this... oh, right! They. Kill. People. A lot. With lasers. And generally for no reason but that you aren't one of theirs and that means you may have suffered some minor mutations. And you wouldn't believe the crap they put Ghouls through." He pulled his fedora smartly back over his rubber mesh covered head, spun on his feet, and walked out of the circle of matted grass, away from the four of us back in the direction we'd come.

Amber's shoulders drooped as she sighed. "I'll deal with this." She said over the now pouring rain as she started after Bass. I was just about to start after him myself before she'd spoken, but now I wasn't sure if I should.

I looked to Sierra for guidance, only to find myself staring back into that cold insectoid visor. I would have jumped if the ground wasn't soon-to-be-but-not-really-yet-mud, but instead I just lost my footing for a few seconds and nearly fell on my arse. I could practically feel my cool points dropping like an anchor.

"You'll come with me, right?" Sierra asked, her voice dropping to something only a few steps above pitiful.

Good question. I don't think Amber was going to be all about this Idea, since she just wanted to get to New Houston to save everybody, I think, and Bass wasn't hyped to be around a member of the Enclave who's butt he'd saved, let alone going to a base full of 'em. There was a giant scale in my mind, swaying one way and then the other as I piled on reasons for going with Sierra or not. I doubt either option was safe, but with the Enclave we had a friend, but then again with the Wastes we had guns, bullets and the skills to use them (More or Less). But then again again Sierra liked me. That counted for a lot, what with girls being either crazy or taken out here in the Wastes. I mentally scolded myself for thinking like that, because this was a life or death situation, and I shouldn't think of her like that. She was more than just a girl who liked me. She was a girl I liked. She was a girl who made my endorphines rush when she laughed. I think that was the definition of not just liking, but Lov- um, well, you know, the-L-wording someone.

"Of course." I smiled at her. My wet hair curl drooped down into my face and obscured my vision. Maybe I did have a stupid hairdo. I wonder if there were any barber shops out in the wastes? Probably not. Maybe a Mr. Handy would do though, as long as I didn't ask for a buzz. They were a piece of butt chocolate when it came to handling that saw they had on arms. Suddenly I there were cold metal arms around my neck. I put my arms around her as she She whispered a electrically modulated thanks, and we just stood there as minute... then two... then three, then nearly fell apart in our attempt to untangle ourselves from each other as Benign let out a series of beeps and clicks that was suspiciously easy to translate as something along the line of, 'Get a room you two!'. Freaking robot. Though maybe getting a room together wasn't a bad plan...

My perverted thoughts were interrupted by the reappearance of Amber leading Bass back to the rest of us. His hat drooped under the weight of the rain that had been absorbed by it, which made me exceedingly glad that my vault suit was made entirely out of leather. Score two for Grey!

Amber smiled her politicians smile at us. "Okay, we're both ready to help you out!" She proclaimed, free hand laying in a fist against her hip triumphantly. No group splitting! Score three!

Sierra... did that giggly thing some girls do when they smile. "Thanks." Then she turned to face the still fresh graves. She murmured something I couldn't quite hear, then turn back to us. "We're going to Lions Ridge. I don't suppose you know where that is, do you?" My Pipboy dinged to let me know that while I might not know, it somehow did, but I let her continue anyways. "It's up north, near Armordillon Gorge," Another ding, "But not nearly so far as Dallas. I already have the location stored in my armor's map, so I'll lead the way, alright?" Hurray! Somebody else was going to be the leader! "But I'm still relying on you to lead us otherwise, got it?" Her head cocked slightly to the left and I got the burning feeling she was grinning wryly. Dang it. Why does nobody understand I'm a bad leader! Thunder rolled in the distance, and I glanced toward my two metal clad companions.

"Maybe we should find some cover, just until the storm ends." I said.

Thunder boomed closer than ever as if to punctuate my point.

"Let's." Amber and Sierra agreed.

Half of an hour later we were sitting clumped together around a small fire in a equally small shed. The floor was dirt, and the walls were tin and rattled loudly as the rain bounced off, but at least we weren't getting wet. A droplet fell onto my nose. Well, not too wet.

"This rain better clear up soon." Sierra grumbled from where she sat besides me in her half soaked underclothes in front of the fire. Apparently even though her Armor was waterproof, that didn't mean that the it's joints were. Score number two for leather vault suits. She shivered and I put an arm around her.

Amber had fared much better in the rain, her suit kept out nearly all of the rain. And yet her hair was still flattened by moisture... suspicious. She sat opposite me, warming herself on the fire. She'd also stripped off her armor, and had hung it up next to her so that the few parts that were cloth could dry. Bass sat with his face away from the fire, staring out the door of our shack and generally not giving a duck about the fact that his clothing was soaked through.

"You'd better learn to deal with it." Bass growled. "Rain out here on the plains can keep up for weeks. If were lucky, it'll keep going untill you realize that this is a stupid plan and that you're stupid for thinking about it and that Grey is a moron for going along with it and that Amber is a manipulative bit-" His voice cut off as Amber hit him with a rolled up magazine. Wait, a second! That was my magazine, how did she get that? I checked my bag and found one of my magazines to be missing. Darn it.

"We're not stupid, and you can deal." Amber said calmly. Then she whispered something into Bass's ear. He shuddered. Okay, note to self, do not tick off Amber. If she could say something to make that badarse shiver, I would be screwed.

"Sorry Bass," I said, "But this is something that she has to do, and we're going to help her do it." Sierra looked at me, eyes a-sparkle with happiness and hope again. Bass sighed. Benign clicked away in a corner, enjoying some sort of robo-humor we could ever have begun to comprehend.

By dawn everyone was asleep (I suspected. I guess Benign can't sleep and I can't see through Bass's goggles.), Sierra was curled up in my arms and Amber was stretched out where she'd sat, feet propped up on Bass's legs while Bass himself simply laid his head back and covered his face with his still dripping hat. I sat there, warmed both by Sierra and the still warm ashes of our fire, and began to drift in and out of sleep. My head bobbed up and down, eventually coming to settle laying on Sierra's sleek haired head, my eyes closing to the smell of her. She smelled nice. Like Nuka-Cola and Motor oil.

Except that I wasn't laying on my new girlfriend's head. I pulled my head back from a sudden source of cold to find that I really was laying on a bottle of Ice cold Nuka.

"Kid, you gonna sleep forever?" Chef's voice boomed. "Damn! I was kidding when I suggested that I bring a mattress in here, but hell, if you wind up spending another night here, I might actually do it!" He went back to sharpening his cleaver.

"Sir, don't you have a class to attend?" Our Mr. Handy unit said, turning one of his observation pods to rest on me as he piled plates into the washer. I pulled my left wrist up into my vision and saw my trusty Pipwatch reading 3:33.

"Biscuits! Sorry Chef, I'll be back!" I shouted as I bolted out of the gray and yellow striped room and darted down the long, familiar hallways of Vault 48, accidentally knocking over the local head of police and former bully of Vault 48, DeGrasse.

"Watch where you're going punk!" He shouted after me, swinging his baton back and forth in the air menacingly. Or at least it would have been menacing if he hadn't been sprawled out on the floor, trying to get up but being harrassed by his heavy police uniform and gravity.

"Sorry DeGrasse!" I shouted over my shoulder as I continued my sprint to my Classroom. Better to be courteous, even if he was a total Tickwad.

I burst through the door of my classroom, panting, hands on my knees. "You're late!" All of the children shouted at once. A couple who'd been searching around through my desk rushed back to their desks, and a few who'd been playing with a paper airplane snappily sat back down.

"Yeah yeah, quiet down pipsqueaks." I grumbled as I made my way to my desk. There was a tack on my chair and all of the children smiled innocently as I held it up and deliberately tossed it into the trashcan sitting near my desk. The trashcan screamed in agony, but I ignored it. Stupid trashcan.

"Today we're going to learn about my favorite subject, heavy weapons." I told the class, who cheered in triumph as I brought out a gigantic magazine detailing all sorts of Big Guns.

"I am a Watermelon." A boy with a watermelon for a head said.

"Shut up Watermelon kid." I told him. He exploded in a volatile burst of delicious Watermelon flavored Nuka-Cola.

"Everyone is a winner!" The children shouted.

"Now, who can tell me where the awesome is located?" I asked the class as I pulled a diagram of a minigun down from the map case set into the wall above my chalkboard.

"You're awesome!" Sierra shouted from the back of the class.

"I know, but where on the gun?" I asked again.

One of the smarter children raised his hand and gave me the correct answer. Suddenly my watch beeped, and I pulled up my left wist to see Benign slowly clicking around on my watch, attached to the seconds hand.

"Oh, no!" I shouted, "Spaghetti!" All of the children screamed as the the doorway was suddenly filled with millions of strands of spaghetti, flooding the classroom. I pulled on my goggles and swam out of the room, eventually finding my way to the Vault door. It loomed before me like it never had before, at least a hundred times my height tall, and just as wide. There was a grinding sound as it was lifted from where it sat by an extensive hydraulic system, and Amber besides me gave me a thumbs up. The door opened to hundreds of thousands Corpse Stalkers, all hungry for my blood. I pulled my bat from its sheath and pulled it back into a stance from a classic Japanese samurai holovid.

"Let's rock this boat!" I shouted and ran into the swarm of enemies, each swipe from my blunt instrument taking out a few hundred Corpse Stalkers.

"Grey!" Sierra shouted from the middle of the swarm. There were thousands of the monsters surrounding her, closing in slowly, and suddenly I was helpless. I took a swing at the nearest Corpse Stalker, which simply took Justice out of my hand and snapped it over its knee.

"Sierra!" I shouted, primal instinct filling me as I rushed her attackers with just my fists and feet, swinging every which way, I occasionally got in a lucky blow, but the majority of my punches and kicks landed on less than amused and far less than hurt Corpse Stalkers, who began ripping me to shreds.

"Grey!" Sierra's voice echoed out, seeming to get further and further away.

"Grey!" She screamed again, voice weaker, failing her.

"Sierra!" I screamed, the name ripping its way from my throat with a physical impact, throwing the hundreds of monsters in between her and I away, tearing some apart with sheer energy. But it was no use. I looked to her and saw only pieces of her, her torso was gone, as well as her legs and arms. Only her head and bits of her hands and feet remained.

And so I screamed again, my suffering and pain becoming the only thing that existed in my slowly collapsing universe, everything around me falling apart, shattering into themselves.

There was a swift crack on my right cheek. "Grey."

I rubbed my stinging face. "Ouch, what?"

Sierra looked down at me, another wry grin dancing on her face. "Wake up. The rain stopped."

Mud squelched beneath my boots as we went off the road for the fifth time, going slightly out of our way to check on what should have been well supplied, well prepared Enclave outposts. Unfortunately, that wasn't what they were at all. Half of them look like they'd been abandoned weeks ago, and the others looked like they'd been for a raider group's torture chamber. Or a raider bonking session. It was hard to tell with raiders. Sierra was appalled that any Enclave member worth his stuff would abandon his post, especially posts as important(ish) as these, which protected the Texan Enclaves southern borders. She raged and ranted through her helmet's voice modulator every time we found an abandoned post. It was probably a good thing she was so angry, because if she wasn't she might have considered what must have happened for the Enclave to have withdrawn their troops. This post was no different, stripped of pretty much all of the fancy tech you'd have expected them to have brought, with the exception of a terminal on a half broken desk detailing their assigned tasks and that they were asked to leave and return.

The weird thing was, not a single of these terminals detailed WHY they'd had to return to base. I poked around some of the scrapmetal around the abandoned post with my crowbar and was rewarded with a Sunset Sarsaparilla. It wasn't a Professor Jalapeno, but it was still nice and bubbly. I offered some to Sierra and Amber, but neither were in the mood. Amber said her trigger finger was itching and that she wasn't comfortable that we hadn't been attacked at all today or yesterday. Why couldn't anybody just enjoy what we had but me? I switched on my radio.

"-which is why I would suggest NEVER ingesting Brahmin piss. For all of you tuning in now, this is your simple, humble, and ridiculously handsome host and holotape jockey, spinnin' disks and tales for your pleasure! Okay, well, I don't spin tales, and I don't have a clue what a disk is, but I'm still handsome! And now for some Neeeews!

"So, some of you might have heard me talking about the mystery of what happened to Scrappington, and that nobody'd seen any of those folk in near a damned week, and it was all true. But things have chaaanged my brothas! Reports have it that the people of Scrappington are back! But here's the real question... where from?

"Apparently, some sort of medbot went nutso and kidnapped the whole damned town, from little kids to the two and a half century old ghouls who ran the place! It was doin' all sorts of horrible things to those folk, until, a very special somebody got in there and kicked some mother duckin' arse! Wanna guess who? What did you say? Captain Texas? Damn straight Captain Texas! He went in there with his province shaped shield and- Wait a second, shut up you! That's not what happened at all!

"No, the real hero is some wacky haired, bat-slinging, sharpshooting badarse from some Vault out there!" Hey, that was me! Wait, my hair isn't wacky dang it! Bass laughed from where he sat picking a lock on a safe. Now even some smooth talking radio prick was talking bad about my hair, not to mention my only companion who didn't even show his face! Also, I wasn't a sharpshooter by any means, I freaking had to empty the clip to hit anything more than five feet away! "Some of the ghoulies he saved attest that he came into the chamber of the beast, shot it up and saved them in just a few minutes, with one of the Texas Rangers and a member of the Freaking ENCLAVE in his party, so not only is he a badarse alone, he's traveling with one of the best in Texas and a member of the Shiny black death and they're all GETTING ALONG. So if you're out there somewhere listening to this funky hair, you did good, and thanks from all of us.

"In other news, Taurens are getting all riled up and are starting to actually fight back against raiders! Of course our big fuzzy friends prefer to call it 'Striking back first'. Jeez, even against raiders our fluffy peacefiends don't like to admit they attacked somebody first. But still, good news for the rest of us. And now for some tuuuunes!"

Some of that jerky feel good music with lots of singing and guitars began to play from my Pipboy. It took me a few minutes to realize I was smiling and a few more before I could wipe it off my face and appear serious enough to face Sierra, who'd just searched the entire camp to come up with nothing to show for it.

Bass on the other hand did come up with something. There was a sudden click and the safe he'd been playing with popped open. He gave a triumphant laugh and began looking through the contents. He pulled out a bottle of whiskey (Half full), a set of keys to the same safe he'd just picked (Seriously, why?) and a stack of papers tied together with a rubber band. He gave the last of these a thorough look through then handed them to Sierra.

"I think we found out why they were being called back." He rasped.

"Good." Sierra said as she took the papers. She pulled off her helmet and began to finger through them. About half way through her face froze in fear, then she started flipping through the papers than I would have thought it possible to read. "Oh god no." Fell from her lips like an atomic bomb. That was NOT a good sign.

"Still think we should go find the Enclave and be all merry merry with them?" Bass chuckled sadistically.

Sierra shook her head as if to throw off bad thoughts (I say as if to, but I actually do that a lot. Way more often than I should.) then informed us of the situation.

"The Enclave is in the middle of a Civil War."

Ducks.

"And these soldiers seem to think that my brother is on the bad side."

Double Ducks.

"And we've got to go save him."

I think she was going for a new ducks record.

"You're still with me, right?" She turned to me and said softly. I did all that I could. Grin and nod. This was her brother, and thus her fight. That made it my fight too. Against half of the Enclave. Whom I've been lead to understand are murderous jerkfaces who would have killed us as soon as look at us otherwise anyways. My hand tightened around the hilt of my sweet knife.

God, I just freaking love my job.

P.S. That was sarcasm.

P.P.S. I don't have a job. I used to be a teacher. Now I just fight things and get into trouble. Freaking Texas.

Footnote:  
>Level up! Guns 60. Speech 40. Melee Weapons 50. New Perk; Barbarian King- You are the king of physical combat, and weapons now speed to do your destructive bidding. All of your unarmed and melee attacks are 20% faster than before.<p>

Quest Perk gained! Quest perk; Warmonger- You might not have started it, but you're darned well going to finish it, whether these big boys like it or not. +15% damage to members of all 'Large' factions. (So this doesn't include creature or raider faction, but does include larger ones such as the Brotherhood, Caesars Legion, Enclave, and the Council of the Texas Rangers.) 


	7. Chapter 6

And so we set off.

Again.

We began to trek northwards, following the roads where we could and cutting accross fields of tall grass when there were no other paths available to us.

Again.

And whilst cutting through one particularly muddy and over all gross and annoying stretch of hills, because of smoke in the distance, we were stopped by two friendly ticks on my EFS, accompanied by the thunder of gunshots.

Again.

Fortunately, (Well, at least for my sanity) this time there were some red ticks on my EFS for them to be shooting at, as well as the sound of lasers to accompany the bullets. Unfortunately, as we stalked up on the couple of friendlies, 'some' became a fudge-ton faster than any of us should have liked. I say should have, because I was kind of frustrated at the fact that we didn't really have a plan to actually do anything. Our plans went a bit like this; 1. Get to Enclave; 2. Find Sierra's brother; 3. Win. We really had no endgame whatsoever, and with the long trek I hadn't had anything else to think about other than the fact that we were stupid and that we had no Idea what we were getting into.

We'll, I guess Sierra had an Idea, and Bass too. Probably even Benign had some inkling of an Idea of what the enclave was capable of. But Amber and I, we were pretty clueless. The details we'd been given or had managed to wring out of Sierra could be summed up in eight words; The Enclave are bad and kind of evilish. Oh, and they were strong, and had lots of guns. I guess that's more than eight words though. Anyways, this left me with a lot of room on my mind and not much information to fill it, and as such my imagination had started getting the best of me, drawing detailed pictures of how screwed we probably were, or how many soldiers they had, and how I was probably going to get killed. So yeah, I had a lot of frustrating thoughts on my mind and not a lot of kid friendly ones.

Which is why as soon as red tick marks started to show up on my EFS, I drew my sweet knife and my charismatic crowbar and ran forwards to give whatever had had the bad luck to stand in my way an arse-kicking, ignoring the surprised comments of my friends as I left them in my dust.

I pushed my way through a clump of the chest high grass only to find myself face to face with the ugliest thing I'd ever seen, which is saying something, because I'd shared drinks with ghouls back in Scrappington. Its stark white cattaraced eyes stared at me, hideous face turning up to look at me, temporarily turning its attention away from the bloody bone it had been gnawing on. I would have been tempted to say it was a ghoul, but this thing looked like it was born this ugly, with a face that was more boils, scars, and cancerous looking growths than skin, and wherever it did have skin that didn't look like it'd been put through a Vault-Tec blender, it grew hair that might have been more at home on the head of a man whose barber had no skill in grooming comb overs. It about four feet tall and was vaguely humanoid, covered in lopsided muscles, left arm that was holding the bone bulging while it's right arm was thin and fragile looking, bearing a rusty cleaver. A thin and ragged loincloth covered its unmentionables (Thank god for that one), but other than that it was without clothing. It took me about an eight of a second to swing my crowbar so hard that I caved its skull in. A loud crack sounded as its brain became pudding and the rest of it crumpled onto the ground. Good news: It was dead! Bad news: There were about twelve more marks on my EFS and they were all coming this way. Awesome. If I'd lead my friends to their deaths, I was going to punch myself in the face.

I half spun my torso and threw my head back to call out to my teammates but before I could shout a warning a crude stone hammer burst out of the grass in to my left and struck me in the face, catching me perfectly on the jaw, and sent me rolling on the ground. As I rolled another, just as ugly and lopsided as the first, burst out of the grass on my right and I rammed straight into its knees, knocking his legs out from underneath it so that it fell on me. It couldn't have weighted more than a hundred pounds, but even from its low center of gravity, the weight of it landing on my chest was enough to knock the wind out of me. It scrambled off into the flattened grass of where I'd been standing and stood up and brushed itself off, trying to recuperate from the sudden fall. At least the things were human. I desperately pulled in the humid and putrid stench filled air as I made a backwards sweep with my knife, slashing at the weak tendons that were located at its ankles. Or should have been located in its ankles. Instead, my knife clattered off skin as hard as iron harmlessly. Note to self: Shit.

It spun as I dug my sweet knife into the ground and pulled myself up, and then tackled me, throwing me back to the ground. One of my hands found its way to the monster's throat and kept it from biting my face off with its malformed and saliva coated teeth just long enough for me to swing my crowbar around and catch it in the ribs, bones cracking as I threw it off of me and rolled to my feet. Okay, so, hard skin; normal bodies. I could deal with that. The creature let out a defiantly inhuman screech and threw itself at me again, but this time I was ready for it. I spun my knife around and caught it so that it's spiked guard was facing outwards and the blade pointed downwards and planted my foot firmly into the ground behind me, and as the creature charged me, I dropped its legs out from underneath it and delivered a swift downwards right hook in one smooth motion, throwing it to the ground so hard I hear the vertebra in its neck shatter as its head bounced against the ground with all of the force of my blow and gravity, leaving a several inch deep indent in the mud in the shape of its ugly face.

There was a hissing of flesh just behind me and I spun into a combat form again, only to find myself looking at a half ashed ugly falling to the floor with Sierra and Bass standing beside it.

"You're an idiot, Grey." Sierra hissed out of her helmet. I grinned dumbly.

"But I'm your idiot." I replied. She hid her visor with one of her palms in a manner that was suspiciously similar to slapping one's self in the face.

"Still an idiot." Bass grumbled, twirling his knife out in front of him. I shrugged.

"They don't go down easy. From what I've seen, knives don't work," I tossed him my crowbar and slipped my sweet knife its sheath, then drew Justice. "A heavy blow to just about anywhere seems to do pretty good though." I nodded to the now fully disintegrated ugly. "Energy weapons too. Where's Amber?"

A there was a crack of gunfire just behind the thin wall of grass to my left, followed by two more, then a grunt of frustration and the sound of several bones breaking as an ugly flew through the grass and bounced off the floor.

"Add bullets to the list of things that don't work." Amber stepped through the grass curtain followed by Benign whistling a happy tune, wielding her rifle like a club, "Glad I heard you whining about how hard they were to kill, or I might not have switched to 'beat their arses to death with my gun' tactics." She let out a snicker. I was not whining! I was just informing my teammates of the impending danger and listing appropriate ways to counter it! That's what leaders do! Probably.

Before I could continue to whine about not whining further, more gunshots and laser zaps sounded near us, and the remaining red ticks fled. Ha ha! We were a force to be reckoned with! Take that universe! Just then a bullet whizzed past my head, close enough to rustle my hair curl. Okay, I take that back universe; just leave me the hell alone!

Amber swung her rifle up to aim at the glimmer of black in the distance that had just shot at us, but I pulled her down before she could get a clear shot and signaled the rest of my companions to get down too.

"Stop shooting!" I shouted. Silver Slate Grey, master of negotiations, that's me. "We're not your enemies!"

There was a poorly hushed whisper and the sound of a metal glove sounding off on a metal helmet, and a modulated voice responded to my treaty. "Prove it!" A brass male voice shouted over the grassland. Hurray, I wasn't the worst negotiator in the wastes!

"How!" I shouted back.

"Uh, you. Um. Wait. You re not our enemy. Come out of there. We promise we won't shoot you." The slightly electronically staticked voice stumbled through its words. I looked down to my EFS and saw the two ticks in front of us were still green, and the last of the red marks had retreated. I looked to my companions, who shrugged. Well, except for Benign. Apparently, his self propulsion drive didn't have a 'Half way' power setting, or at least he didn't feel like using it, so he just lay on the ground, half enveloped by mud. He did beep monotonely though, which I took for a robo-shrug.

"Okay, I'm coming out now. I have a gun. But, uh, I'm not going to shoot you. It's just in case you try to shoot me. I just want you to know so you don't shoot me because I have a gun."

"Okay, we won't shoot you. We have guns too. Please do not shoot."

Oh god, I thought, I'm gonna be pissed if I get shot. Also, this is really dumb and I need to get better at diplomacy. I stood up slowly, holding my bat in my left hand, letting the tip graze the ground, and pulling out my pistol and holding it over my head in a non-threatening manner. Or what I hoped was a non-threatening manner. Freaking Postapocoliptia and its screwed up perceptions. I stepped through a couple feet of grass and emerged into a small clearing, no more than fifteen feet across, and saw the two people who'd been friendly on my EFS. Both wore unmarred shiny black Enclave armor from head to toe, though the shorter of the two's armor was splattered in slightly glowing blood. Not his, I gathered.

"THIS, is what scared off a freakin' army of Goblins! He looks like he could barely fend off a radroach!" The shorter one shouted through her vocalizer. Whoops. I'm really bad at this Enclave armor gender thing. And apparently not very intimidating. I glanced down at my modified vault uniform and saw how dirty it was. Okay, maybe I really wasn't very intimidating. But neither was the speaker. Without her Armor, she must have only been 5'4" or so, and she was holding her assault rifle in hands that trembled even with the reinforcement of her grime and dirt power armor.

"Shut up, Sprite, this guy just saved our asses." The second Enclave said as he smacked the back of his companion's head with an armored glove for what was defiantly not the first time. He wasn't all that much taller than his buddy, but must have at least 5'8" without his armor on, and pulled of a pretty menacing (At least to people who weren't already that height) 6'2". His armor in contrast to Sprite's was in much neater. Mud did splatter his boots, but since we were in what was practically a swamp, I think that can be overlooked. The rest of his armor gleamed, and he bore a red dashed line on the metal of his left arm. Even his Laser Rifle was shining, and those things look like they were put together from spare parts! "Sorry about her," He said in a calm and polite tone of voice," I'm Private First Class Muckraker, and this is my squad mate Private Second Class Jay."

I was just about to throw in a quib about her name being a letter when Amber stepped through the grass behind me. "A two man squad? The Enclave really must be in trouble these days." She said, taking off her helmet and slinging her Laser Rifle back over her shoulder where it clanked against her pack. The two Enclave members stared at her armor for a moment then shot into action, heaving a fist against their chests in a salute, then standing at attention.

"Maam, Squad One of Delta Platoon in the Fifteenth Recruit Division reporting for duty!" They both shouted in unison. Ha ha ha, yeah, I was lost. Military people are weird.

"At ease." Amber said softly, quite the opposite of the vigor the recruits possessed, but the pair of recruits softened all the same.

"I thought you were a Weapons Specialist or something, not a god-king?" I said in a mock whisper with my hand cupped around my mouth directing the whisper to Amber.

She grinned, then put her hands on her hips, holding her helmet in the crook of an elbow. "I'll have you know that we Enclave take pride in our hop to it attitude, and address soldiers with the respect their ranks deserve." She said haughtily. Amber bit at her lips and turned to the pair of... I didn't want to call them soldiers. They seemed too young to be soldiers, even if I had no Idea how old they actually were. Maybe it was their attitudes that made me think it. "But in all seriousness, where is the rest of your squad?"

Muckraker sighed and scratched his head while Sprite crossed her arms across her chest and turned away from us, probably turning her nose at the mention of the subject underneath her helmet. "Well you see," Muckraker started, "We didn't exactly start out a two man squad. We had a third member but he, uh, didn't make it."

"You don't seem very sad about that." Sierra pointed out.

"'Course not, he was a douchehog," Sprite blurted out, then started to backtrack to make her words seem less harsh, I mean, he was... a jerk. Name was Joshua Proudmen. He treated me like a whore and bullied Muckraker and shit, and, um... well, he wasn't even a very good soldier. He could hardly shoot straight and he sucked at melee combat too. When he got assigned to a squad with me and Mucksy, he practically shat himself!" She started to laugh. "You should have seen his face! Priceless! heh, heh... um. But we lost him earlier. Walked out of camp after we ordered him to stay put, then got nailed by a Goblin just outside. That's actually why we're here. We ran after they knocked him dead, and they finally got us surrounded just a few seconds before you guys got here." She turned to Muckraker. "I still think we could have taken them."

Muckraker sighed. "Yeah right, Sprite. Each one of those things could pick you up and snap you over its knee, even if they are half your height." Huh. They didn't seem THAT tough when I fought 'em. Maybe I got the runts. Wow. That's a scary thought.

Sierra grinned at their antics. They did seem like good friends. "Well, anyways," She said, "We need your help."

They both turned confused gazes on her. "Our help?" Sprite asked, "Why?"

"We're heading back to headquarters in Lions Ridge. I've been told there have been some... problems." Sierra said softly, as if she could barely get her mouth around the last word.

"So you don't know then?" Muckraker asked, his face adorned with an astonished expression that didn't much seem to fit his character. "About the Schism?"

Sierra sighed. "So it's gotten that far?"

"Schism?" Amber inquired, stumbling on a upturned root as she walked through the thin grass layer. Me and Sierra turned to Amber with what were probably more than confused looks on our faces. Amber was not amused.

"Oh come on!" She shouted, face turning red with both embarrassment and anger. "Not even I can know everything!" I cracked a grin and Sierra stifled a giggle, whilst the young Enclave just stared at us blankly.

"Right," I said, "Do you remember when the church split up?"

Amber gave me a frustrated stare then flushed again. "They only taught us AMERICAN history in the vault!"

I scratched my head and tried to keep from laughing. This had been in the textbooks of course, probably with a healthy amount of bias too, but she must have skimmed over it. She really had only cared about how great America was, and not really paid attention to the rest of it. "Well, basically, a schism is what happens when a group starts separating into two parties with separate Ideals and Beliefs, and then the single group splits into two, and they go their own ways, generally leaving a trail of blood behind them." I grinned again, but this time it was at my own personal amusement. Half a week and several hundred bullets away from the vault, trapped up in a game of love, survival, and factions that extended beyond my perception, I was still a teacher.

Amber looked at me skeptically. "That's stupid," She said, "Americans had lots of different Ideals, and yet they stuck together through thick and thin!"

Heh, yeah. It was kind of silly, wasn't it? To kill each other because we didn't think the same, when we could just leave? I shook my head. People are bad. I thought of Sierra, and her concern for the Enclave. People are good. I thought about the raiders that had taken over America. People are bad. I thought about my own actions, charging into things headfirst, generally being an idiot. People are dumb. I looked back up to Amber. "Yeah, people are stupid."

Sierra smiled softly at me and then turned back to the pair standing adjacent to us. "So how bad is it then?"

"Bad isn't how I'd describe it." Muckraker rubbed at his neck. "I'd call it a disaster. There's the 'True' Enclave, led by the elder members of the council, and then there's 'Auro's Enclave'. Both are about equally strong honestly, with Auro's lot getting most of the new recruits, but the 'True's having the more experienced soldiers and most of the old weapons."

"Why did they split?" I asked as the aching in my arms reminded me that I had a pistol over my head and I slid it back into its holster.

"Just like you said." Sprite answered. "Different Ideals. Auro's group believes in 'protecting' the wastes and taking in new recruits while the 'True' Enclave believes in protecting their old world values and gene pool. Pretty stupid if you ask me. Old coots are going to run out of genes one day, and if Auro's right, it'll be soon."

Sierra gave a sad grimace. "I take it you two are in Auro's Enclave?"

"Yes Ma'am." Muckraker answered in all but a shout. "But we are both of the Old Enclave blood ourselves."

"Yeah!" Sprite agreed gleefully and raised her rifle proudly. "Auro's the best! We're finaly getting to use the training we've gotten. If we'd stuck with the 'True's, who knows how long we'd have had to wait to use these."

Sierra bit at her lip. "Just how old are you two?"

Sprite took off her helmet and revealed the face of a girl who still wasn't a young woman yet. She was pretty, sure, but not attractive. Her short cut light brown hair ruffled with the wind as she spoke, "I'm fourteen years old!" Her grin still showed more innocence than I believed could have existed in the wasteland. Without her voice being modulated by her vocalizer, she was clearly still just a child. What the hell? Now, I don't know much, and I'm no priest, but I damn know where the limits to right and wrong are, and this wasn't right. To make a kid like this fight...

"And I'm fifteen." Muckraker said from behind Sprite as he took of his helmet. He was the picture of awkward teen youth. His face was splotched with random bits of acne, and his ears still looked a bit to big for his body. His hair was long for a military guy, coming down almost to his eyes. His blue eyes were cold. Too cold. Damn it. This universe was starting to piss me right the heck off.

I looked at Sierra, who seemed like she was thinking the same things I was. This wasn't right. And her brother was orchestrating it. God Damn it. Not cool. She folded her arms and continued to chew on her bottom lip.

"Will you two take us to Lions Ridge?" She asked.

Sprite and Muckraker passed each other a puzzled look, which melted off both of their faces at the same time. "We actually aren't based at Lions Ridge anymore. Auro's Enclave is located just to the southwest, in the Military plant. We can take you there if you want." Muckraker offered.

Sierra frowned. "It wouldn't be any trouble?"

Muckraker shook his head. "It wouldn't be any trouble. We have to go report what happened anyways."

Sierra nodded. "Then, if it's all right with you, we'll accompany you to my brother."

My PipBoy let out another beep and I brought the screen up into my field of vision.

-Quest Added: Running on Auro'd Time.-

I shook my head. Really Pipboy? Have you really been reduced to bad puns?

Which is how we got into the worst situation imaginable.

Bass, Muckraker, and I all walked at the front of the group, each of us holding our respective weapons out in front of us ready to fire, but casually; Bass holding a small but powerful looking pistol, Muckraker gripped his laser rifle in one hand loosely, and I held Justice out in front of me. The Highway we were walking on was the first completely intact one we'd seen, and it was kickarse convenient to have the high ground, have it have barriers, and for to be difficult for enemies to reach, should you find any or vice versa. I suppose it would have been inconvenient if we'd run across any enemies traveling on the same path as us, but all we'd seen was some crazy arse wasteland merchant who tried to get me to sell Benign to him in return for a duffle bag full of mystery meat, so I assumed we weren't in all that much danger. The asphalt was cracked and covered in dirt and uprooted concrete, but it was still pretty nice to walk on.

I had expected the highway to buy us some peaceful travel. I had not expected what peaceful travel would bring. Almost ten paces away, Amber, Sierra, and Sprite were doing something none of us could have even pretended to have thought possible.

They were having intercourse. I wish. No, they were actually doing something far, far worse.

Gossiping. Just twenty feet behind us, the trio of girls, accompanied by a whistling Benign, were giggling like... like... well, like a bunch of girls! I turned my head back to look at them, and scowled. Seriously, what in the wasteland were they talking about? Guns? Being Raped? That's pretty much all I could think of. Unless... they were talking about what was behind Bass's mask! I had started to wonder that myself. I hadn't seen him take off his mask once in the time we'd been together. Even when he ate some of the Teslawasp steaks I'd made, he'd somehow managed to do it without removing his mask. Another burst of laughter erupted from the girls. Benign whistled mournfully. Gah! What were they talking about? Maybe they were talking about... ME!

I mean, I was ruggedly handsome, ridiculously strong, super manly, and very... um... okay, I don't know how to put a positive spin on 'History Nerd', but otherwise I was freakin' great! Well, greatish. A giggle swept through the girls like a virus. Yeah, it was probably about me. I sighed.

We continued marching like this through until nightfall, when we stopped in an abandoned (Oh really now?) ticketing booth of some kind to spend the night. With a few swings from a bat, and the effort of hauling out a radroach nearly as big as Sprite, I deemed it hospitable. Which naturally meant that I got to spend the night outside.

"We're ladies, we need our beauty sleep." Sierra whispered to me as she began to close the door.

"Well, the others might need it, but you certainly don't." I whispered back to her.

She grinned and let out a small giggle as she shut the door on my face. What was it with girls and giggling when they were around other girls?

I Laid myself down onto the ground, using my magazine and tool filled rucksack as a comfortable, if stiff, pillow, and tried to fall asleep.

At least it isn't raining, I thought to myself.

Hey, you know what? Screw Grey, The universe thought to itself.

Minutes after I closed my eyes, light droplets of water began to trickle down from the ever grey sky.

At least it i-, I started to think, but then stopped myself. I didn't want the universe getting any more Ideas. Bass grumbled beside me about the weather, but simple pulled his hat over his goggles and began snoring within seconds.

Unlike us, Muckraker actually seemed prepared for this type of thing. He took off his Power Armor and laid it besides him, then pulled a thin sheet from his metallic backpack and rolled it out on the ground, where it inflated with the push of a button. He then retrieved a weather proof sleeping bag and zipped it up all the way around him, so that it enveloped even his head. The rain pinged against it gently. I looked down to my own gear. A crowbar, a Vault 48 canteen, a sweet knife, a pistol and a bat, with some tools and magazines and a sack still half full of cookies. I grinned. I bet he didn't have a sweet knife. I picked out my sheathed trench knife and hugged it to my chest as I began to fall into unconsciousness. A sudden, poorly stifled outburst of laughter from the booth jerked me back. Soft, warm light poured out from the glass window on the other side. I rolled onto my side, still smiling for no reason. In my last moments of wakefulness, I remembered we didn't have a sentry, and used my Pipboy to message Benign to wake us up if he saw anything. There was a distant affirmative beep from the ticketing booth and the words:

-Can do, boss.-

And I drifted off into sleep. I dreamed of Watermelon head kid again. And Sierra. Mostly Sierra. I just like to point out how that Watermelon head kid somehow makes it into all of my dreams. This time, everybody else exploded into juice though.

Now, My exact words (message) to Benign had been, 'Wake me up if you see anything you think is important', and he darned well stuck to that like wonderglue. But, what I hadn't considered was what BENIGN actually considered important, which is why at exactly 2:42 and six seconds, Benign began blaring urgently, turning our makeshift camp from peaceful and quiet to a warzone of curses.

"God damn it Benign! Stop that!" Sierra screamed at Benign in frustration, holding him down on the ground and trying to muffle his horn with a salvaged seat cushion she'd been using as a pillow. But he just kept on blaring.

"If that robot doesn't shut up," Bass growled, readjusting his hat back onto his head, "I'm going to crack it like an egg and rip out its motherboard."

Benign suddenly burst out of the Ticketing booth and flew towards me, hitting me in the stomach as he stopped his outcry.

"Jeez, what is it?" I grumbled, still only half awake. He let out an excited beep and sent a message to my Pipboy.

-I saw a sheep!- It read. I scowled at Benign. He sent another message.

-It was big and fluffy and had curly horns and it was a sheep and I wanted to touch it because I bet it felt soft.-

Now, I'm not dumb enough to believe that a robot without parts specifically designed to so could ever show emotions, but I don't think that Benign s state could be defined as anything but a child-like ear to ear grin. I was really starting to wish I'd set some parameters for what was, 'Important' at that point, but I couldn't help but to grin at Benign s excitement. Benign must have thought that this was important because, well, he liked sheep. Which, I guess is weird for a robot, but whatever. Maybe his programmer was just weird. Or awesome. There's a fine line.

Regardless, there was still a ringing in my ears from his wailing, and I doubted I was going to be able to fall back asleep. My head fell back to the ground, and I laid splayed out on the ground, looking up at the clouds.

Or what should have been clouds. Instead there was a gap in the ominous moisture that had hung in the sky for the last few days. And through it... I saw stars. More than I could have ever imagined, spiraling, twisting, and sparkling in the sky above me. Oh, the stories those stars could tell, having hovered in the sky since before earth had even existed. They'd seen the birth, rise, corruption, and destruction of the human race. I held my hand out above me. They seemed so close, like I could reach out and grab the twinkling spheres of plasma without even straining myself. I clenched my hand, imagining that all of the power of the universe was inside of it, that I'd grabbed power incomprehensible from the sky with a simple twist of my wrist. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The air smelled fresh, wet with the rain and fragrant with the pollen of the grasses that surrounded the highway. I smelled the still slightly damp leather of my Vault uniform, and the scent of the few iron tools I kept in my rucksack. I smelled the faint odor of oil coming from the ticketing booth. It was peaceful. Everyone else had settled back down and fallen asleep. The only sound was the gentle hum of Benign's propulsion unit. I was at peace, and so was the world, if only for the moment.

That moment was shattered by a boot kicking me in the ribs.

"Ouch!" I shouted involuntarily. I wrenched my head towards Sprite, who was standing besides me with a disapproving frown on her face. "The heck was that for?"

"To wake you up dumbarse." Sprite said, wrinkling her nose at me. What a punk. She gestured behind her, pointing with her thumb, Power armor clinking as she did so. "We're leaving." She turned and walked to where Muckraker was pulling on his helmet. The sun was already shining down, but it couldn't have been more than eight or nine. I glanced around and saw Sierra already decked out in her Power armor and Amber standing beside her loading her rifle. Bass was talking with Benign, and it looked like he was trying to teach Benign how to use a knife. I pulled myself off the ground and slung my rucksack over my shoulder, then growled as I had to pull it off again to get at my canteen. After trying to take a swig, Twice, I realized it was empty. I sighed, then walked over to a enormous fissure in the road where water from last night had pooled, and started filling it up again. When it was full, I pressed the purifying button on the bottom, drank a bit, then hid it back inside of my rucksack. The water tasted as bad as a Goblin was ugly, but at least with the rudimentary purifier, I was confident it wasn't going to make me sick. I stood up and walked back to Sierra.

"Ready to go?" I asked. Bass nodded, Benign beeped, and the rest slung their respective packs on as an answer.

We'd been walking for about three hours before we saw our first signs of the Enclave. The first thing we saw was a three man party guarding an outpost looking rather bored, one was throwing rocks out over a pond to see how far he could skip them. When they saw us they were quick to pull out their weapons and train them on us.

"who goes there?" A Enclave member with a bright blue band decorating his shoulder plates asked us. A little old school if you ask me. I deferred to Sierra in this situation.

"I'm Sierra Auro, and this is Private First Class Muckraker and Private Second Class Jay. We're just passing through on our way to the Military plant." She said, and the troops relaxed.

"Good to see you Specialist Auro," The trooper to Blueband's right said, "Some would have it said that you'd died. Good to see they're wrong." He said happily.

Sierra snorted. "I agree. So, I assume that means you side with my brother?"

Blueband stepped forwards and gave a haughty laugh. "Of course. Truly, Auro's men are the only Enclave that walks the land. The 'True' Enclave just hides away in their holes. So who are these with you?"

"Friends. Allies. Good people." Sierra said.

Blueband nodded. "Well, good luck to you then."

Sierra nodded back, then started off again. The rest of us followed under the scrutinizing eyes of the other members of the Enclave.

This situation played out four more times, with a practically unchanging cast, there was always a overconfident superior, a underling who was casual with his superiors, and a quiet third member who just watched, never quite relaxing until we were more than thirty meters away from the camp. It was a bit unsettling.

The walk was long, but not hard. There were a few hills that would have been treacherous to cross, and Muckraker pointed out some tell-tale signs of goblins, but we were able to just walk around these. It wasn't long before we were standing before an enormous metal chain-linked fence, accompanied by an even larger three dimensional sign of a Ice Cream cone holding some sort of shotgun, saying;

"Red scare? They wouldn't dare! Now while our hypermodern weapons can FREEZE 'em in their tracks!"

I laughed at this. Yeah. Defiantly no commie invasions while these guys were on the watch. Oh wait. World War III. I checked my Pipboy, which read 3:11. We'd made good time. There was a shout from one of the numerous watchtowers that were just barely encompassed by the oversized fence, and a metal gate decorated with iron popsicles and grenades slowly grinded open. I sighed and hoped that making good time was a good thing.

An Entourage of seven soldiers marched towards us in an arrow formation, one officer with slick black hair with heavily armed bodyguards of apparent rank on either side. The officer grinned brightly at us, his teeth shining nearly as much as his slicked back hair. His uniform was covered in medals. The guards of the gate saluted as he passed, and continued to stand at attention even when he reached our ragtag group.

"Nice to see you again, Sierra." He said, his smile broadening. He was tall and thin. Not very muscled, but he looked like he could easily throw someone to the ground then pull them back up just to do it again. It felt like looking in a dickish overconfident mirror, with the exception of his eyes. They were dead and cold.

"Same to you, Brother Dearest." Sierra said with a false smile just as radiant as her brother's.

Shit.

I'd known her brother for two seconds and I already didn't like him.

I sighed. Somehow, I felt like this was going to be the beginning of a long and annoying friendship.

Footnote:  
>Level up! Melee Weapons 60. Survival 20. New Perk; Grand Slam- All melee (except thrown) and unarmed attacks have a chance of knocking your target down. 15% for Unarmed or one-handed melee, 30% for two-handed melee. <p>


	8. An Interlude  Boxes are Relative

Time. Time is relative. Relative to space, relative to perception, relative to speed; point being, it isn't the same to anyone. For example, the longer some one has lived, the less time might mean to that person, and they might less notice its passage. Time wasn't relative to the Box. No, it couldn't be, for the Box didn't exist within someone's perceptions, nor did it exist by its own perceptions. In fact, according to some, it might not have been considered to exist at all. Long forgotten, the Box lounged in silent agony. Boredom itself seemed to have rendered the Box sentient, if only to the point of knowing how bored it was. Long ago, it recalled, if that can be the proper term for an object that didn't quite exist drawing upon memories that didn't quite exist either, that it had not been bored. No, back then (Time being relative as it is, it could as much have been forwards in time to the Box), it had enjoyed the company of a master.

A stupid, lazy, arse of a master, who did as he pleased and didn't care for the consequences, but a master who had kept the Box company all the same. But no more. He had long been deprived of his master's voice, touch, and egotistical monologues (Which the Box didn't consider to be under the same category as the Master's voice for reasons the Box didn't quite understand, seeing as it was a Box, and didn't much care anyways).

But, as time drew on the Box had begun to feel. Though maybe that is to gracious a term, truly, instead of feel, the Box began to Know instead. It knew it was in a dark place, where none would much care to be, and it knew that at times it was unbearably cold, and at others swelteringly hot. This wasn't a fact that should have bothered it, for it was a Box, but it couldn't help but feel miserable despite the fact that it shouldn't feel anything. It had already felt boredom, so why not taste misery as well? It asked itself, then felt glee as it realized that it had just had it's first cognitive thought. The glee was shortly followed by pride, after all, it had just evolved into sentience without anyone or thing's, help.

Unfortunately, Shame followed Pride through the door, and curb stomped Pride as the Box realized that it was illogical that a non-living, let alone usually non-thinking, Box should have come into sentience without any assistance.

And so the Box discovered curiosity. If left unhindered, the Box would have surely continue to ponder how it had come be, and then ponder why it had come to be, and for what purpose, and driven by those questions it would have found itself on the brink of insanity with the scope of the situation pushing him past it. Fortunately for the Box, this was not the case, as something new come into its knowledge as the Box felt something fuzzy and warm brush across its top, followed by a voice.

"Fuck you woman I do what I want!" A male voice pouted.

"Hey! I'm not a woman, I'm a babe, got it?!" A young female voice responded. "And I'm not questioning your authority, I'm questioning your sanity!"

"Yeah, this is coming from the girl who wanted me to fire her out of a heavy artillary canon. So you could get into space. So that you could get a tattoo on your ass."

"How can you still hold that against me? I was like, six!"

"You were twelve, and- Hey, wait a sec. Is this what I think it is?" Suddenly the Box was being lifted from its dark seclusion, and was blinded by the sudden presence of light, at least until it realized it did not have eyes that could have been blinded. Upon realizing this, the Box perceived its surroundings. It was in a small, cramped room, with a single bulb of light dangling from the ceiling by a thin string. Books, pieces of lost tech, treasure, and a general mish mash of things were jammed here or there in a way that could have never of been perceived as organized, even if the being perceiving it hadn't bolted upon sight. The walls themselves were unable to be seen, except where they met the ceiling. Standing outside of the doorway was a horse-like creature of purple mane and bright orange coat. Horse-like seemed appropriate as it seemed evolution had decided to go for cuteness over effectiveness of body, and its head was far too large while it's legs seemed to lack joints of any kind. The box noted that it also had wings. It was rather cute though, the Box decided.

And, holding the Box in his fuzzy, sicklyish green fingers, grinning down at the Box as his ears twitched happily, was the master. Sure the last time the Box had seen the master, he wasn't green, or covered in slightly prickly fuzzy hair, or with ears that belonged on top of a leopard, but the vibrance in his voice and the insanity that radiated from his body proved it to be his master, complete with his signature double-jacket.

"If you think it's a black boxy thingie, then yes." The feminine voice proved to be the orange pretty winged horsey.

"Oh man, I hope it still works!" The Master grinned wildly, as his articulate fingers opened the Box, splitting it nearly in two but for a section at the back that swiveled up and down. And thus the Box was revealed to be more than a boxy thingie, but instead more of a devicey thingie. You learn more about yourself every day, the Box thought to itself.

"Whoa, that's a lot of buttons. Did you steal another one of Twilight's inventions again?" The Winged Horsey scolded.

"No!" The Master pouted, which would have been unbelievable considering his unlimited amount of infinite and manifestable energy at his disposal, if not for the fact that he was was so far past insanity that he'd become sane again. Loosely so at least. "This is Compy, though It's been a while so I don't really know what he's calling himself now-a-days," The Box, the Box mentally interrupted, "But he used to be my primary computer." The Orange Horsey stared at the master blankly.

"And that means?" She put forth in an effort to figure out why he was so excited about this devicey thingie.

"It means he has all of my fanfic- I mean, stories on it! I can't wait to go read through these!" The Master said excitedly, booting up the Box, typing his password with his finger's body memories more than actual thought.  
>The Horsey facehooved. "Are you kidding me pops? You write fanfiction? Just like freaking Twilight?" The Master righted himself, picking himself up from where he was crouching, balancing the computer on the palm of his left hand while pressing buttons seemingly at random with his right.<p>

"'Just like Twilight?'" He mimicked, throwing a disgusted sneer at the horsey. "Scoots, Twilight writes... no, Twilight, Vomits, smut, where her and her friends have sex over and over again under the guise of false personas that even a foal could see through. I, I write ART."

Scoots the Horsey Shrugged. "But it still has sex scenes that you wouldn't share with anybody who knows who you actually are, right?"

The Master gave a nervous smile and rubbed his neck furiously, as though trying to friction away the awkward. "Ha ha ha that's funny you're funny. Of course not!" She gave him a blank stare. "Okay, maybe a little. But still, nothing like Twilights!"

"So more like Rarity's?" Scoots gave a wry grin. The master rubbed his forehead.

"You know what, read them yourself! You'll see that not only am I the best Wizard who's ever been, I'm also an above average writer!" He proclaimed, then threw golden powder at Boxey, who then began spitting out paper even though it wasn't possible. Boxy would have been confused by this, but it knew the Master, and simply went along with it. Not that it could have done much besides. When it was done vomiting the story that the Master had written on the Box long ago, he collected the pages and passed them to the horsey.

"Yeah yeah, pops, I'm sure you can write very well." She said in the most condescending voice possible.

"I'm not that old..." The Master mumbled to himself as they left the storage closet and made themselves comfortable in a room that was halfway between a kitchen and a living room. Scoots made herself busy with reading the story, at first simply shifting through the pages, but slowly reading more and more until it was clear that she was engrossed in the story. The Master smiled to himself as he booted up one of his old games on boxy and the sound of exploding space marines softly poored from the century old speakers.

A few hours later, and the Orange horsey looked up wide eyed and hopped over the the Master. "Kai, you've gotta print the rest of this for me."

The Master looked up from the total annihilation of an alien species and frowned. "Uh, that's kind of it, Scootaloo. There's no more."

Scootaloo recoiled as if she'd been struck. "B-but, when you said fanfiction I didn't think that you were talking about a Fallout fanfiction and I read-it-and-I-really-like-it-and-how-could-you-have-not-shown-me-this-earlier! It's really good! Why haven't you written more!?"

The Master frowned, then shrugged. "I don't know. I just kind of forgot about it. Glad you liked it though."

The Orange horsey glared at the Master. "You're going to finish this." She commanded.

"But I-"

"No 'but's!" She shouted. "This is good, and I like it, and so you're going to write more."

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are. Or I will eat all the Lucky Charms." She hissed, an evil smile creeping onto her face.

"You wouldn't dare!" He shouted, horrified by the prospect of losing his morning sugar rush.

"Yes, I would. And, you won't wake up until at least noon, so there's nothing you can do about it."

"You couldn't eat them all!" He countered, leaping to his feet, the Box clattering to the floor at his feet.

"Oh, yes I can," She cooed, "And If I can't, I'll just feed them to ."

The Master cringed and raised his hands over his head in defeat. "Fine, fine! You win! I'll write more! Just not the Lucky Charms!"

"Good." Scootaloo giggled. "I'll be looking forward to it." She said as she walked out the door of their apartment.

The Master slowly relaxed, sprawling out on the couch, then sighing. He pulled the Box back onto his lap from where it had fallen. Slowly, his finger dragged across the touch pad and opened a notepad document. "Come on Box, looks like we've got work to do."

If the Box had any control of its body, it would have quivered with excitement. 


End file.
